posted
Tracking phones for traffic reports By Matt Richtel The New York Times THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2005
SAN FRANCISCO Some U.S. states prohibit drivers from talking on hand-held cellphones lest they become distracted, slow down traffic or, worse, cause an accident. Others are finding that cellphones and driving might not make such a bad mix.
Several state transportation agencies, including those in Maryland and Virginia, are beginning to test technology that allows them to monitor traffic by tracking cellphone signals and mapping them against road grids. The technology highlights how readily cellphones can become tracking devices for companies or government agencies - a development that troubles privacy advocates.
These new traffic systems can monitor several hundred thousand cellphones at once. The phones need only be turned on, not in use. And sophisticated software now makes it possible to discern whether a signal is coming from, say, a moving car or a pedestrian.
State officials say the systems will monitor large clusters of phones, not individual phones, and the benefits could be substantial. By providing a constantly updated picture of traffic flow across thousands of miles of highways, they argue, cellphone tracking can help transportation agencies spot congestion and divert drivers by issuing alerts by radio or on electronic road signs.
Next month, Maryland, with the help of the University of Baltimore, plans to begin tests for a cellular tracking system in the Baltimore area. Virginia also plans to test a system around the Norfolk beltway. Similar technology is already in use outside the United States, including in London, Antwerp, Belgium, and Tel Aviv.
"The potential is incredible," said Phil Tarnoff, director of the Center for Advanced Transportation Technology at the University of Maryland. He said the monitoring technology could possibly help reduce congestion in some areas by 50 percent.
But he, and other people involved in the emerging technology, said there were critical hurdles. Chief among them, Tarnoff said, is getting the cellular carriers to collect and share the cellphone data.
The carriers already collect an enormous amount of data so that they can, for example, tell whether a cellphone user is roaming out of their network. But separating the data to show the speed at which cellphones are being passed from one cell site to another is still a challenge. To get the data, the monitoring companies have to reach agreements with cellular carriers. But whether they can be profitable or make it worth the while of providers to be involved is an open question.
Privacy advocates say traffic monitoring could mark the beginning of governments using cellphones to track individuals' movements. Even if the tracking is done anonymously and in clusters, they say, it could allow state and federal officials to track where people are headed en masse in order, for instance, to know where protesters are gathering.
"This enables the government to have a much easier time of knowing what private people are up to without any sort of process or consent," said Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an electronic privacy advocacy group.
Companies offering the technology include ITIS Holdings of Britain and IntelliOne Technologies and AirSage, both based in Atlanta. AirSage signed a deal in July to provide such technology to the Georgia Department of Transportation, which plans to begin using it in early 2006. All three companies say they have neither the ability nor interest in tracking individuals.
Any cellphone that is turned on constantly interacts with the cellular towers that are located every few hundred feet in a metropolitan area or every half mile or further in a rural area. The monitoring software instantaneously analyzes those movements.
ITIS Holdings, which has been in the business for several years, for example, receives feeds round-the-clock of cellphone signals from the British carriers Vodafone and 02. The ITIS system, which can receive several hundred thousand signals at once, uses sophisticated computer algorithms to tell whether a given signal is coming from a car, a biker or someone sitting still.
The analysis takes only seconds, said Stuart Marks, the chief executive of ITIS. The information is provided to transportation agencies or can be purchased by consumers.
-------------------- Spend Word For Word With Me And I Shall Make Your Wit Bankrupt. Posts: 1326 | From: Here | Registered: Oct 2005
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I avoid most modern conviencies as well as most modern convienient people.
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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You sound like me in that way, bdgee. I drive a twelve year old car (by choice) and still don't have a laptop (also by choice).
Posts: 3243 | From: California | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by RiescoDiQui: Tracking phones for traffic reports By Matt Richtel The New York Times THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2005
SAN FRANCISCO Some U.S. states prohibit drivers from talking on hand-held cellphones lest they become distracted, slow down traffic or, worse, cause an accident. Others are finding that cellphones and driving might not make such a bad mix.
Several state transportation agencies, including those in Maryland and Virginia, are beginning to test technology that allows them to monitor traffic by tracking cellphone signals and mapping them against road grids. The technology highlights how readily cellphones can become tracking devices for companies or government agencies - a development that troubles privacy advocates.
These new traffic systems can monitor several hundred thousand cellphones at once. The phones need only be turned on, not in use. And sophisticated software now makes it possible to discern whether a signal is coming from, say, a moving car or a pedestrian.
State officials say the systems will monitor large clusters of phones, not individual phones, and the benefits could be substantial. By providing a constantly updated picture of traffic flow across thousands of miles of highways, they argue, cellphone tracking can help transportation agencies spot congestion and divert drivers by issuing alerts by radio or on electronic road signs.
Next month, Maryland, with the help of the University of Baltimore, plans to begin tests for a cellular tracking system in the Baltimore area. Virginia also plans to test a system around the Norfolk beltway. Similar technology is already in use outside the United States, including in London, Antwerp, Belgium, and Tel Aviv.
"The potential is incredible," said Phil Tarnoff, director of the Center for Advanced Transportation Technology at the University of Maryland. He said the monitoring technology could possibly help reduce congestion in some areas by 50 percent.
But he, and other people involved in the emerging technology, said there were critical hurdles. Chief among them, Tarnoff said, is getting the cellular carriers to collect and share the cellphone data.
The carriers already collect an enormous amount of data so that they can, for example, tell whether a cellphone user is roaming out of their network. But separating the data to show the speed at which cellphones are being passed from one cell site to another is still a challenge. To get the data, the monitoring companies have to reach agreements with cellular carriers. But whether they can be profitable or make it worth the while of providers to be involved is an open question.
Privacy advocates say traffic monitoring could mark the beginning of governments using cellphones to track individuals' movements. Even if the tracking is done anonymously and in clusters, they say, it could allow state and federal officials to track where people are headed en masse in order, for instance, to know where protesters are gathering.
"This enables the government to have a much easier time of knowing what private people are up to without any sort of process or consent," said Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an electronic privacy advocacy group.
Companies offering the technology include ITIS Holdings of Britain and IntelliOne Technologies and AirSage, both based in Atlanta. AirSage signed a deal in July to provide such technology to the Georgia Department of Transportation, which plans to begin using it in early 2006. All three companies say they have neither the ability nor interest in tracking individuals.
Any cellphone that is turned on constantly interacts with the cellular towers that are located every few hundred feet in a metropolitan area or every half mile or further in a rural area. The monitoring software instantaneously analyzes those movements.
ITIS Holdings, which has been in the business for several years, for example, receives feeds round-the-clock of cellphone signals from the British carriers Vodafone and 02. The ITIS system, which can receive several hundred thousand signals at once, uses sophisticated computer algorithms to tell whether a given signal is coming from a car, a biker or someone sitting still.
The analysis takes only seconds, said Stuart Marks, the chief executive of ITIS. The information is provided to transportation agencies or can be purchased by consumers.
My experience has been that traffic problems aren't really that complicated. Two basic things...
1. Stupid people the continually block intersection, so that when the opposing light turns green they're in the way.
2. The same stupid people that think you can merge with 70-80 mph traffic while going 45mph.
Posts: 722 | From: Richmond, Va , USA | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Just wait for national ID cards, hell they can already search your home or business, tap your phones and check your bank accounts without any warrent whatsoever...
Soon we'll be stopped at every intersection to check ID's to make sure we're not terrorists.
Nazi's we're catching up on you!
Posts: 562 | From: NY | Registered: Jul 2005
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A 12 year old car? You are a piker, lad. Mine are a 32 year old bug, a 21 year old chrysler, a 42 year old Corvair, and a 23 year GMC half ton, with holes in the fenders.
I admit to having gotten soft lately. Once, while sitting in a duck blind aside the Brazos River (fur you damnyankee and other furinur types, that ain't pronounced like brah-zOOs...it's breaz-us (sorta like "has us", neither syllable accented), one of the guys, looking up river where we had stashed the boat, said he felt sorry for me, not being able to afford a newer boat than that poor old Lone Star (that's the manufacturer's name). I was supposed to feel deprived, of course. To the first, a second companion said, "Yeah, the poor bas---d has to go fishing in that 35 year old boat, drive a 25 year old car, and fly his 40 year old airplane, but at least he doesn't complain on it all the time." To which I added, "Why complain, they all go when and where I want to and I've never had to make a payment on any of them).
Nope, I have no laptop, other than the one that damned black cat that lives here uses.
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by 4Art: You sound like me in that way, bdgee. I drive a twelve year old car (by choice) and still don't have a laptop (also by choice).
Best car I ever owned was twenty years old when I sold it. 1982 280ZX Turbo.... Something to be said for classics.
-------------------- Spend Word For Word With Me And I Shall Make Your Wit Bankrupt. Posts: 1326 | From: Here | Registered: Oct 2005
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Onstar can be fun. I like to push the button and say something like, hi how's it going? Or sit in my driveway, give them my address and ask for directions to my house.
-------------------- If it wasn't for bad luck I'd have no luck at all. Posts: 1529 | From: Tacoma WA | Registered: Apr 2005
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