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Bluetooth Used To Track Traffic Times
First time accepted submitter ChanukahZombie writes "The City of Calgary, AB has introduced a new traffic congestion/timing information platform for drivers. 'The system collects the publicly available data from Bluetooths to estimate the travel time and congestion between points along those roads and displays the information on overhead message boards to motorists.' Currently only available on the Deerfoot Trail (the city's main highway artery) but will be 'expanded in the future to include sections of Crowchild Trail and Glenmore Trail in the southwest.' As for privacy concerns, the city says it cannot connect the MAC address collected to the device owner."
TFA is low on details re: what Bluetooth devices are being monitored. I know my cellphone and laptop have Bluetooth support, but I keep that mostly turned off. Do all cars in Canada come with built-in Bluetooth tracking technology? Triangulating from actual cellphone signals appears to me to be a more fool-proof if not spook-proof technology. The limited range of BT devices do make them a better choice in terms of privacy.
There, FTFY
Bits of code, random ramblings: jakimfett.com
Of course no government or private entity would ever start tracking speeds of drivers and start sending owners of the phones speeding violations if they're deemed to be speeding, right?
Because everyone knows it's impossible to spoof a mac address...
Google Maps already does this with Android phones feeding google traffic density and speed data.
Its eerily accurate.
Traveling over the holiday weekend we got into some crawling slow traffic on the freeway. Google maps traffic layer said the red zone would end ahead as soon as we passed a particular location which just happened to be near a car dealership. As soon as we drove by that dealership traffic resumed normal flow.
And they do this with zero additional infrastructure. Why is Calgary wasting tax payer money installing additional sensors, when they could buy the service from Google, or probably just use it for free?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
There is a significant density of Android phones. Just about everywhere.
I just whistled up a map of Calgary, and turned on the Traffic layer. I can see every traffic jam in the city in real time.
If you can't see that, perhaps you need to learn how to actually use your phone.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
The city is bound to the privacy act in this case. And in turn, they won't be able to subpoena the information related to the mac without showing that an actual crime was committed. That would be a fishing expedition in Canadian law. And both the Superior Court, and SCC would flush this down so fast that any Crown who tried it would still be reeling from the blow.
I have to say though, having driven along all of these routes, especially Deerfoot Trail and Glenmore Trail, this is welcome and needed badly. With the mass influx of people the entire highway system there is a mess. It wasn't designed to take the massive influx of people in the last 5 years that they've seen. Last I heard, it was somewhere around 30-40% over capacity due to the boom because of the oil patch and mineral patch work.
Om, nomnomnom...
Bluetooth, Tire pressure monitors, Cell phones, Keyless entry fobs, seriously, are you going to just shut them all off while traveling. Bluetooth is just one of many ways to track the travel times of an individual vehicle. Add ANI to the list. A growing database can figure out of you took the alternate route, worked late, or detoured to the taven on the way home from the historical data collected.
The question is is the data compiled or discarded daily? This was not mentioned. Dept of transportation may use the data for traffic travel times. States may use it to enforce restraining orders, sexual preditors, and DHS may use it to track drug dealer's movements.
What is the data collection retention period and is it collected into a database?
The truth shall set you free!
I figured your non-fix deserved my non-fix.
John
Oh, that could be fun. With a few buddies you could make their system think you were going 500 MPH or so. Do it with enough devices and you could probably get their signs to say something like: Avg Time to Vancouver - 1 hour.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I wonder how Google is able to map the traffic density in countries where Google Map navigation is not available. For example, Google Map navigation is not available here in Malaysia, so I use a modded version of the Google Map android app that allows navigation internationally. Surprisingly, I can turn on the Traffic layer in the app and it would show the traffic density. Is Google actually getting the data from the modded apps? I would be surprised if so many people here are actually using the modded version instead of the official app that disables navigation.
Dropbox drops it like it's hot.
Personally I think this is an ingenious use of technology. You people are so paranoid about privacy. You seem to be able to find a sinister side to everything, don't you? Come on, get over it. Let's celebrate creativity instead of always raining on people's parade.
Dropbox drops it like it's hot.
Is Google actually getting the data from the modded apps?
I suspect they pull that data directly out of their asses. I just checked my city. Its 5 in the morning, street in front of my house is empty yet Google maps is showing heavy congestion :)
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
CALTRANS uses loop detectors in freeways and major roads to monitor congestion. They just count cars in each lane and measure how fast they're going. They've been doing that for over two decades. You can see the result at . LA used to have a dedicated cable channel with that data. No privacy-invading user-identifying technology needed.
The data is used in several ways. The most important one is that when the system detects high traffic density at slow speed at one sensor, and lower density at higher speed at the next one in the same direction, it means trouble, usually an accident. The traffic detectors report the lanes separately. If something is blocking a lane and traffic is going around it, that's detected too. Cell phone and Bluetooth monitoring won't give you that.
CALTRANS has had cameras (which you can watch on line) on high poles over freeways for decades. Some have pan, tilt, and zoom capability, so when the automated system detects trouble, someone can use a camera to look at the problem area and dispatch whatever is needed.
Another use of this data is to control the metering light system at on-ramps. Freeway throughput peaks at 35 MPH (at higher speeds, the cars have to space out more) and cars are deliberately delayed a few seconds at on-ramps when speeds drop below that level.
Both of these functions require reasonably accurate data, but there's no need to identify cars individually. This all works quite well without it. Probably better. Counting all the cars on a second by second basis is more useful for detecting problems fast than some statistical measure of some of them.
The data also goes out to web sites, apps, driving time predictors, etc. There's an free API, integration with transit data, integration with CHP incident info, a developer group, etc.
A truism of traffic management is that fast response to trouble on a freeway increases the capacity by about one lane, and it's a lot cheaper than adding a lane.
So I'm not too impressed with some small-scale trial that snoops on Bluetooth headsets.
There is nothing to subpoena. This particular device does not store MAC addresses at all. When a Bluetooth device is detected, the first thing that is done is to pass the MAC through a one-way hash. The actual MAC address is immediately discarded and only the hashed value is stored.