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Project Turns GPS Phones Into Traffic Reporters

Posted by timothy on from the then-it's-mandatory dept.

narramissic writes "Starting on Monday, researchers from Nokia and UC Berkeley will kick off the Mobile Millennium project. The researchers hope that thousands of volunteers will download a free Java program that figures out by their movement and location when they are driving, and then transmits that information to the project's servers, which then crunch it into a Bay Area traffic map. 'The whole concept here is that if everyone shares just a little bit of what they're seeing ... then everyone can benefit by seeing the conditions ahead of them,' said Quinn Jacobson, a research leader with Nokia in Palo Alto."

22 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. The privacy post by Max+Romantschuk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm sure the data is anonymized, but how well? Will people be comfortable with having their phone track them? Anyone know? Didn't RTFA yet... ;)

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    1. Re:The privacy post by ZankerH · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Until we arrive at an overtly panoptic government, I wouldn't mind volunteering for my data to be shared if it helps.

      I can certainly see this being used to help the traffic control police - aka revenue generator.

    2. Re:The privacy post by HungryHobo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If this became a big thing and my company maintained a toll road then I'd be looking for ways to create phantom "traffic jams" on alternative routes. This sounds like a trust based system.

    3. Re:The privacy post by Dan541 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Forget privacy, who is going to pay for this wireless data?

      Why would someone sacrifice their battery life just for another to benefit.

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    4. Re:The privacy post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's no problem. The idea is that you benefit from the information which emerges from the aggregated data. Kind of like other community projects, for example CDDB or Wikipedia. You feed a small piece of information into the system and get the service of the whole system back.

      The thing to watch out for is: Who owns the data? Are you really just jumpstarting a commercial enterprise which will later turn the free service into a product or serve your data back to you with ads, while you are forbidden to use the database for your own purposes?

    5. Re:The privacy post by rodrigoandrade · · Score: 2, Informative

      Newsflash: your phone ALREADY tracks you; it's an inherent part of cell phone technology. What matters is how this tracking data is used.

    6. Re:The privacy post by cellurl · · Score: 2

      I completely agree. I also question slashdot's motives at promoting Nokia. Ok, here goes: I am promoting this: Its free now, but probably not later. I suck! http://www.wikispeedia.org/ Here's another item I am promoting. Its not free but useful. Slashdot won't cover it. http://www.gpscruise.com/ What do you think? -jim

  2. Interesting, but only useful if widely adopted by William+Ager · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The project seems interesting, and there does appear to be at least some consideration for keeping the data secure.

    However, I would think that the system would require widespread adoption in a particular area before it would even start to be useful, and considering that it will only run on the small percentage of phones that have GPS to begin with, and there isn't much incentive in the beginning for users to install the software, I'm not sure that such an idea will be viable for at least a few more years.

    1. Re:Interesting, but only useful if widely adopted by cornjones · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I would think that the system would require widespread adoption in a particular area before it would even start to be useful

      Not really. Initially, I would bet it is only extrapolating based on location and speed. I know somewhere like seattle (and I would be surprised if SF is much different) will have i high enough concentration of geeks w/ toys to bring back data on the major routes. If you have 1 data point on the I5 going at 15 MPH, you can guess that traffic sux. Given the volume of the people, a fairly low adoption rate will give data.

      More data points will always make the system better, of course.

      One of the big advantages to any of these traffic knowledge programs is that they benefit both people tapped in to the program and those not. For example, super tech guy A checks this program and sees that Road N is slammed today. He, or hopefully his software, will plan a new optimum route based on the traffic data. This removes tech guy A from the problematic traffic pattern. Luddite guy B, doesn't know any of this but his traffic pattern is eased b/c the group of people like tech guy A have avoided exacerbating the problem. As a side benefit, you have utilized your road infrastructure more completely. (recent research about limiting paths being more efficient notwithstanding)

    2. Re:Interesting, but only useful if widely adopted by Pervaricator+General · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Traffic is traditionally modeled as a fluid, with all points assumed to be moving within a very small tolerance of some speed. When do you see someone NOT going within 10 of the speed limit who isn't an outlier? They are either parked on the road or blazing through traffic.

      While recent research has suggested that a gas-based model might give better predictive results, you shouldn't need that kind of fine granularity to be accurate in the near-term.

  3. Yeah but Helicopter crashes are more entertaining by cavehobbit · · Score: 5, Funny

    Come on. Don't they know the reason we all listen to the half-hour-out-of-date traffic reports from the helicopter reporters is the same as why we watch Nascar and Indy car races? The chances of a crash and the anticipation of mayhem are the whole idea. Not to mention the cheesy chopper sound track they add.

    This takes all that out of it. It guarantees a daily fender-bender on I-95 while drivers fiddle with the app. Whoop-de-doo.

    Well, maybe if they keep the chopper sound effects.

  4. Know what happened with Dash? by Lord+Satri · · Score: 3, Informative

    I of course wish them good luck. One of the last commercial attempts to do this, Dash Express, recently revealed it did no go as well as originally planned.

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  5. TomTom did it! by wfberg · · Score: 4, Informative

    TomTom takes anonymized location information from mobile phone handsets in The Netherlands, and make traffic reports they call HD traffic.

    The handsets are not (necessarily) equipped with GPS chips, but their location is triangulated by the GSM network itself. The mobile network (Vodafone NL) supplies the information to TomTom, who then process it into traffic reports.

    They claim to cover 10 times more roadarea than conventional traffic detection that uses inductive loops embedded in the roads. (The conventional system is already quite extensive in The Netherlands, which is a small and densely populated country). I seem to recall TomTom also have some sort of patent.

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    1. Re:TomTom did it! by kitgerrits · · Score: 4, Informative

      Actually, you can see the current HD Traffic status on their website for free.
      The reason you need to pay for HD traffic on your tomtom is because it includes a 24x7 GPRS connection.
      Mobile Data packages in NL tend to cost around â10 a month and so does HD traffic, surprise!
      The added advantage of HD Traffic is that it uses a modem built into your Tomtom, so you are free to use your mobile phone for other things.
      (unlike earlier versions of Tomtom Traffic).

      --
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  6. And what would happen if... by ngp · · Score: 4, Funny

    You and your 50 coworkers get to the office and forget to turn off that app? Massive non-existent traffic jam?

    1. Re:And what would happen if... by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Only in parking spaces 26-76, though.

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  7. Has been done in Bangalore in a different way by ashraya · · Score: 4, Interesting

    In Bangalore, they tried to do this in a different way by looking at the number of cell phones that connect to various towers etc., without using GPS. Check out the links at http://btis.in/live.htm ashraya

  8. Tom Tom HD by zoefff · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's already commercially available here in the Netherlands. Tomtom teamed up with vodaphone, which can locate their mobile phones location and speed (not necessarily GPS needed) . This is fed to tomtom, which displays it on your navigation system. More info here

  9. Who would be dumb enough to download this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    *considers existence of FaceBook*

    Nevermind.

    1. Re:Who would be dumb enough to download this? by afidel · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Actually I'm hoping Google adds this to Google Maps Mobile. Currently they use the commercial traffic services for data which means a delay of 15-30 minutes typically in getting notification about traffic jams, with realtime data from actual commuters they could provide MUCH better data. This would save me hundreds of hours per year. The government can already track you through the cellular network and Google would not turn the individual user data over to anyone else, so why wouldn't I participate?

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  10. Re:Yeah but Helicopter crashes are more entertaini by thedonger · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I think an even bigger issue with the immediately-out-of-date traffic report is that once the crash is cleared and the traffic at the front of the line starts moving they consider the problem resolved. They do not take into account the ripple effect sending echoing "shockwaves" of traffic stalls up and down the highway.

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  11. Few spolsports will kill it all by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Ideas seems to be good on paper, but on reality it is going to go the way Citizen Band radio went. One dumb teen who thought he was a DJ would play his scratchy cassette player over the radio and knock everyone else within his broadcast radius. Something similar could happen to this method too.

    The data streams are anonymous and users voluntarily download and install a java program. Wow! What can go wrong?

    A few spoilsports will hack the java program to give misleading reports, multiple reports. Initially I don't see any benefit to the hackers. But the script kiddies do not think rationally. They do it anyway.

    Why can't the cell towers simply track the number of phones each tower is pinging? Then the net gain and net loss of number of phones, plotted over time, gives the direction of movement of the population of cell phones. That should be enough to give a good idea of the traffic. This would be a better way to find/predict traffic congestion than asking thousands of peoples to actively report their positions.

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