HERE, Automakers Team Up To Share Data On Traffic Conditions (reuters.com)

German digital map maker HERE will introduce a new set of traffic services this week that allows drivers to see for themselves what live road conditions are like miles ahead using data from competing automakers, an industry first, reports Reuters. From the report: The Berlin-based company, owned by Germany's three premium automakers, will provide four services in which drivers share detailed video views of traffic jams or accidents, potential road hazards like fog or slippery streets, traffic signs including temporary speed limits and on-street parking. BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen will all contribute data to the service, making their first big collaboration since they bought HERE for 2.8 billion euros ($3.1 billion) late last year from mobile equipment maker Nokia of Finland. Other automakers are expected to join the project later and contribute data from their vehicles, HERE said. The new live traffic services are set to hit the road in the first half of 2017, HERE said on Monday before the opening of this week's Paris Motor Show.

Comments

And after 1 year you will need to buy new car to

[Joe_Dragon]

And after 1 year you will need to buy new car to keep getting software updates.

There is Waze

[apetrelli]

'Nuff said.

Re:There is Waze

[Yeggous]

We're talking about a service that will be orders of magnitude larger than Waze. In order for Waze to get data the driver has to actively open the app. This will be constantly drawing data from millions of vehicles all the time without needing the driver to do anything.

Re:There is Waze

[Ranbot]

We're talking about a service that will be orders of magnitude larger than Waze. In order for Waze to get data the driver has to actively open the app.

I'm finding it hard to believe that 3 German car manufacturers with a relatively small share of the total car market will have "orders of magnitude" more traffic data that what Google is currently processing. Waze/Google Maps (same company) pull data from all Android and iPhones with open Google Maps/Waze and all Android phones with location services on, which send location data to Google, regardless of whether a mapping app is being used. Google also has has years worth of historical traffic data they can use to predict traffic patterns. (Source: http://www.techinsider.io/how-... ).

Prediction: They will cobble together a mediocre system that won't perform any better than Google Maps/Waze, but will be flashy enough convince their older, wealthy, non-tech-savvy buyers (mostly BMW owners) that their over-priced, luxury, info-tainment package was worth the upgrade and monthly subscription.

Tesla map already shows congestion

[ShanghaiBill]

The map display in a Tesla already shows traffic congestion. I have heard that they get the data from aggregate cell phone data. The cell towers can tell when the cellphones bunch up and stop moving.

Re:Tesla map already shows congestion

[Carewolf]

The map display in a Tesla already shows traffic congestion. I have heard that they get the data from aggregate cell phone data. The cell towers can tell when the cellphones bunch up and stop moving.

They get it the same place everybody else gets it, by being it from third parties, probably HERE or similar companies depending on where they bought their GPS software.

Re:And after 1 year you will need to buy new car t

[93 Escort Wagon]

HERE Maps is an iOS and Android app.

Privacy Concerns.

[jellomizer]

While I would love to get live traffic info... I would have concerns about privacy with my Car broadcasting where I am at any moment.

Just because it is an European company it doesn't mean that the government will not want to get its hold on that data.

Re:Privacy Concerns.

[Yeggous]

While I would love to get live traffic info... I would have concerns about privacy with my Car broadcasting where I am at any moment.

Just because it is an European company it doesn't mean that the government will not want to get its hold on that data.

As opposed to your smartphone which already tracks you everyone? The American companies (Google, Apple) are just much less up front about tracking your every move.

Re:Privacy Concerns.

[jellomizer]

The difference is that they know you are in a vehicle and which vehicle. To get that data from your phone, there will be a lot more statistical correlation on the data. So if your phone is going 100mph in a 45mph zone. How do they know it is you, or your just left your phone in a car that went at that speed.

If it is a car that is registered to you, you hold responsibility for infractions of that car.

Also being that we know it is automobile data. if we want to catch speeders it is a much smaller data sets with less big computation.

Select Distinct C.Name, C.Address, Cast(D.DatapointDT as date) InfractionDate from Customer C left join DrivingData D on C.CustomerID = D.CustomerID where D.SpeedSegment >= 75

Re:And after 1 year you will need to buy new car t

[fph il quozientatore]

You wouldn't download a car!

Overthinking

[fluffernutter]

I'm starting to think they are way over thinking this traffic thing. Usually sticking my head outside my front door will tell me all I need to know about getting to work for that day.

Re: Overthinking

[fluffernutter]

I guess nothing changes in the place I live. There are back ups but they are predictable because they always happen in the same place. So you learn easily what route to take based on weather and time of day.

Even on lesser known OSes

[DrYak]

It's even present on lesser known OSes.
- It's the default maps on commercial ports of Sailfish OS
- It used to be available on Palm/HP webOS back when those existed. (But I didn't test it much. The unofficial GoogleMaps was better than Here, and the default official Google maps)

Data aggregation method

[DrYak]

The map display in a Tesla already shows traffic congestion.

And you could probably find even older GPS units/applications that predate Tesla and still show traffic congestion.
(e.g.: old Tomtom do show traffic).
Even before the age of on-line connected cars, in Europe there were traffic information over the RDS data channel on FM stations
(and probably the same on the US equivalent ?)

The novelty isn't the traffic information, it's the way data is aggregated.

I have heard that they get the data from aggregate cell phone data. The cell towers can tell when the cellphones bunch up and stop moving.

The news here is that HERE-Maps managed to get competing automakers to work together to share their data on congestion (as determined by the connected cars themselves).
(Which could be combined with the coarser info from cell tower to get even more informations).

It's got to be better than Maps

[HangingChad]

Driving back from Miami using Google Maps, it would show us where traffic was slow...once we got there. But show us congestion in time to choose an alternate route, no way!

My wife was mocking the app. "Traffic is slowing down now," she prompted. Thanks, hon, I never would have noticed traffic conditions out the window.

Re:It's got to be better than Maps

[adolf]

Use Waze if you want to get someplace on a route that is both statistically faster, while also going around unusual traffic conditions where possible.

(It's not always possible.)

Re:It's got to be better than Maps

[thegarbz]

I actually find Maps to be quite the opposite. It all depends on how the traffic builds up. In areas where the traffic is gradual and consistent maps not only gives very good and accurate traffic predictions but also predicts it out based on the time of your arrival, i.e. proposes a path now that may seem slower but actually be faster by the time you get there. Maps also allows you to predict the traffic on the website so if you ever need to go to the airport at peakhour without ever having been there before you can check it for instance the night before.

Now where Google maps fails miserably is any traffic congestion that suddenly appears out of nowhere. Two cases are traffic accidents and really big businesses with sudden closing hours and a choked road from which all the traffic leaves. That is really more miss than hit, but the it seems quite on par with Waze and even the local city run service I use.

That said the alternate route option is only ever shown when you have time to take it, unless your local maps database is screwed up (e.g. Ring highway systems where Google maps doesn't seem to have a clue).

Re:It's got to be better than Maps

[bad-badtz-maru]

Were you actually using the navigation feature? It will show congestion in minutes in South Florida. It's amazing how quickly the data is updated from even minor congestion, usually within a few minutes. Perhaps you were expecting it to re-route but the current route was still the fastest.

Germany

[DrYak]

As mentionned :
BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen are German automakers. Their bound by German laws.
And people in Germany tend to be very picky about their privacy.

The car will probably have to ask you if you agree to share you data.
With options to opt-in or opt-out.

(Though maybe the US-export model will get tempered with and will simply opt out of receiving the aggregated traffic information, but still constantly beam your position. To the NSA. And also transmit everything it can hear around).

German Autobahn!!!

[DrYak]

So if your phone is going 100mph in a 45mph zone {...} if we want to catch speeders it is a much smaller data sets with less big computation.

Hallo ! Vee are the German Automakers von BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen.
Vee are tasked mit designing dis car data aggregator.

Vat is dis "Speed limit" dat you're speaking of ?
Vee have never heard about it....

(Alzo, vat are dis "mph" units ? Do you have nicht metric Zystem ?)

~~~

Joke?

[DrYak]

I think what the poster meant is that he's working on the other side of the same street.
(Or working from home), and litteraly doesn't need a complex system to tell him what are the conditions on the sole cross-read he needs to cross.

---

Alternatively, he's Scandinavian, and the traffic problems he has to face are more weather-related (read: heavy snow-falls) other than other-people related (his closest neighbour, Olaf Guntersson, lives half an hour away).

Traffic signs = active cameras

[beschra]

The Berlin-based company, owned by Germany's three premium automakers, will provide four services in which drivers share detailed video views of traffic jams or accidents, potential road hazards like fog or slippery streets, traffic signs including temporary speed limits and on-street parking.

Wasn't Germany one of the countries that had a hard time with google street view? Are they going to accept millions of cameras driving around sharing everything they see?

Re:Traffic signs = active cameras

[Agripa]

Wasn't Germany one of the countries that had a hard time with google street view? Are they going to accept millions of cameras driving around sharing everything they see?

It is not fascism when they do it.

Better headline:

[thegarbz]

HERE, Automakers team up to provide us something we've had for 10 years already from several other sources.

Thanks Automakers, good to see you're on the cutting edge of technology yet again!

Re:Better headline:

[bad-badtz-maru]

That makes sense then, they're going to keep the featureset in the same era as the HERE map cartography.

Re:Better headline:

[Carewolf]

HERE, Automakers team up to provide us something we've had for 10 years already from several other sources.

Thanks Automakers, good to see you're on the cutting edge of technology yet again!

You have had it for over 10 years from HERE (formaly also known as Navteq). This is not new to them, they are one of the primary providers of this service, this is just a new addtion to the service.

Re:Painful

[bad-badtz-maru]

Microsoft can't have the contract because they don't own their own map data, they use Navionics, which you may better know as HERE.

Re:And after 1 year you will need to buy new car t

[Carewolf]

HERE is what used to be Navteq before they got bought by Nokia, and then later sold to THERE (owned by the three german automakers). If you a car with built-in GPS it is probably already using that technology.

Instead of re-inventing the wheel...

[Ranbot]

...car manufacturers should just make their info-tainment/navigation systems 100% compatible with iPhone and Android. There are no proprietary in-car mapping systems or digital user interfaces better than what people have on their phones, which already connects to new cars via bluetooth or cable/dock. Car companies need to hand the the navigation and digital interface to the tech-world, so they can concentrate on what's under the hood.

Re:And after 1 year you will need to buy new car t

[RDW]

The earlier Nokia version of HERE for Android was very good for offline use - whole countries or large regions like US states were downloadable in one go as usefully searchable maps with SatNav routing, all for free. Google's limited offline capabilities looked pretty feeble in comparison. Now that the car companies have got hold of it and renamed it HERE WeGo, they've changed the interface to make it much more more oriented to providing turn-by-turn directions rather than map exploration, and long-term users are finding it slower and buggier, with a flakier offline mode: https://play.google.com/store/...

Re:And after 1 year you will need to buy new car t

[Agripa]

And the manufacturers will start sending false data to competitors.