Tracking Traffic Jams With Cell Phones

kaufmanmoore writes, "Companies and governments are looking to alternatives to expensive radars and road sensors to track traffic jams. Two Atlanta-based companies are aiming to use data from wireless carriers to mark how fast phones are moving and overlaying that with maps to calculate traffic conditions. One of the companies, AirStage, has already partnered with Sprint-Nextel and the Georgia DOT to cover Atlanta's notorious traffic. The plans raise obvious privacy concerns over the usage of the data of your cell phone's location and the accuracy of this data." From the article: "[The] systems rely on wireless companies allowing them to process the data from their towers that calculate the position of each phone about twice a second when it's being used and once every 30 seconds when it's not. [One company's technology] can track vehicles to within 330 feet without using Global Positioning System satellites. Its software is designed to weed out the difference between pedestrians and drivers, then crunch it into detailed color-coded maps that show average speeds along roadways."

Superman

If he had a cellphone, this could really screw things up.

How much does traffic information help, anyways?

I'd be interested if somebody has done a study to determine how much additional throughput is gained by giving X% of drivers congestion information. My guess is it would do more to reduce the variance of travel times than it would to reduce the average tr

Re:How much does traffic information help, anyways

I'd be interested if somebody has done a study to determine how much additional throughput is gained by giving X% of drivers congestion information. My guess is it would do more to reduce the variance of travel times than it would to reduce the average tra

Re:How much does traffic information help, anyways

I'd be interested if somebody has done a study to determine how much additional throughput is gained by giving X% of drivers congestion information. My guess is it would do more to reduce the variance of travel times than it would to reduce the average tra

Watchin ME or watching THERE?

If the phone companies strip identifying information from data one might be
tempted to think there is no problem in making this information available.

However, the privacy concern may not be limited to the ability track a specific phone, which they would probably require court permission to do.

There are lots other uses, and abuses of such technology, such as finding where tonight's big party is located, which local watering hole is over-capacity, how much traffic the local liquour store (or street corner dealer) is getting.

Even if such uses were void of personal data, they provide data about the location,
whether that be a private home or a business.

Re:

There are lots other uses, and abuses of such technology, such as finding where tonight's big party is located, which local watering hole is over-capacity, how much traffic the local liquour store (or street corner dealer) is getting.

If you're worried,

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> Cell phones can be turned off if the user doesn't wish to be tracked.

You managed to miss the entire focus of my post in your rush to reply.

I was commenting on the fact that I, You, We, may allow violation of privacy of other entities merely by walking

I knew this sounded familiar...

http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=168794&cid =14070720 [slashdot.org]

How long?

How long 'til it's used to ticket me for speeding without the hassle of actually putting a cop at the corner?

Dupe! Double Dupe! Triple Dupe! Dupetacular!

Wow, this might just be a record. Maybe not all exactly the same thing, but still the same idea :)

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/19/14 3247 [slashdot.org]
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/10/23 37259 [slashdot.org]
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/ [slashdot.org]

Are you fucking kidding me?

How many times does this article need to be duped on Slashdot?

1. Tracking Traffic Jams With Cell Phones
   http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/05/22 20211 [slashdot.org]
   
   
2. Tracking Your Cell Phone for Traffic Reports
   http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/10/23 37259 [slashdot.org]
   
   
3. Baltimore to Test Cell Phone Traffic Monitoring
   http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/19/143247 [slashdot.org]
   
   
4. Cell Phones to Monitor Traffic Flow
   http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/19/074524 8 [slashdot.org]
   
   
5. Using Cell Phones to Track Traffic
   http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/01/159241 [slashdot.org]
   
   
6. Tracking Cell Phones for Real-Time Traffic Data
   http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/16/076217 [slashdot.org]
   
   
7. Finns To Use Cell Phones To Monitor Traffic Jams
   http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/12/30/124324 7 [slashdot.org]
   
   
8. Using Cellular Traffic to Monitor Traffic Jams
   http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/06/13/042822 9 [slashdot.org]

Tracking dupes with cellphones....

Hey no harm in wishing!

walking in LA

Its software is designed to weed out the difference between pedestrians and drivers, then crunch it into detailed color-coded maps that show average speeds along roadways.

I doubt they even have to employ this software in LA. From what I hear, nobody wal

Consumers need to negotiate terms

When our presence, our body is being used for commercial gain we should be getting a cut.... a kickback for opting in to be a part of the service. Cellular companies nickel and dime us to death with various 'services' that should be part of the standard pa

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I say no.

We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company.

Equally as likely would be the reverse.

“Causing Traffic Jams With Cell Phones”

Once someone has an accident you can all report the incident and resulting congestion right away!

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It seems we should turn off the cell phone when not using it.

Nah, go the other direction: let's have every vacuous twit in North America calling every other one while driving, and then start cascading the accidents to the point that nothing moves.

This wil

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Automated speeding tickets will show up on your cell phone bill.

How do you differentiate between the cell phone of a driver, a car passenger, and a bus passenger? Besides, EZ-Pass has had this capability for years, yet they aren't using it because peopl

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Or a catapult? Or airplane? Would be a fun exercise.

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The pedestrians are moving.

*ba-dum-CHING*

... okay, actually, this is pretty easy. If you can get them to only pay attention to certain streets (like 75/85 or whatever I-number you like), then pedestrians are, if anything, moving perpendicular to

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What about a paralell feeder road that has pedestrians walking along it?

Almost...

What we really need is fewer roads, fewer cars, more restrictions on driving, and more public transit. It looks likely that Bloomberg's administration will spend its last years following London's example [streetsblog.org], perhaps even going so far as to turn whole sections

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We need MORE roads, LESS cars, and another tunnel into Manhattan.

1/3 of your statement is correct.

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It's like those radio traffic alerts on I-78, US-1/9 and other routes into NYC...as soon as people here there is a jam on 78, all the cars are on 1/9 and you create another traffic jam. It's an unstable routing algorithm. The real answer came to me in a dr

You're not helping...

Great! Now thanks to you we also have a duped comment for this duped article :p