Project Turns GPS Phones Into Traffic Reporters 119
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."
Know what happened with Dash? (Score:4, Informative)
I of course wish them good luck. One of the last commercial attempts to do this, Dash Express [dash.net], recently revealed it did no go as well as originally planned [zdnet.com].
TomTom did it! (Score:5, Informative)
TomTom takes anonymized location information from mobile phone handsets in The Netherlands, and make traffic reports they call HD traffic [tomtom.com].
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.
Tom Tom HD (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 [tomtom.com]
Re:The privacy post (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Interesting, but only useful if widely adopted (Score:1, Informative)
This type of data is also very useful if paired with the extensive data already being captured by the local DOT, and a company called Traffic.com, since bought by NavTeq, which was subsequently bought by...wait for it............... Nokia.
Traffic/Nokia has sensors along all of the big highways in the top 30+ markets in the US. This takes a decent amount of $$ to install (and subsequently maintain), but it's already installed, up and running (hence the purchase by Navteq). If this "new" methodology proves worthwhile and usable, it can seriously augment/replace the build out necessary to cover an area. NOTE:(investors were asking traffic 5-6 years ago why you would install sensors if you could do this with a cell phone, good thing for them and their users they didn't listen/wait to use "free" resources).
And finally, this allows for the coverage of secondary and tertiary roadways that you would NEVER spend the money to cover with the more "traditional" sensor (i.e. senor = pole, battery(ies), solar panel(s), acoustic sensor, wireless modem); an installation can cost upwards of 50k per SITE (especially if you have to shut a lane down).
But that's why Nokia has sponsored it. IMHO
Re:TomTom did it! (Score:5, 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).