Canadian firm helping study how cellphone signals can be used to increase traffic flow
Charles Mandel
Sun
CREDIT: Glenn Baglo, Vancouver Sun files Cellphone signals could help ease commuting pains if an innovative Canadian project yields hoped-for results.
An innovative Canadian project may ease commuting pains, reduce gridlock and make a compelling business case for reselling a little-heralded source of information — cellphone signals.
Delcan.NET, a Markham, Ont.-based information technology firm, is helping guide the State of Maryland in a study of how cellphone signals can be used to increase traffic flow. The new technology, developed by an Israeli firm and managed by Delcan.NET, is capable of monitoring several hundred thousand signals at once.
By studying signals from cellphones switched on in moving vehicles, transportation planners believe they can gain information about the flow and speed of traffic that could help alleviate potential traffic jams and be used to forewarn drivers of trouble spots.
“I think we’ll be able to manage traffic significantly better than we’ve been able to in the past and provide the public with much better information about alternate routes and travel times,” said Philip Tarnoff, director of the University of Maryland’s Center for Advanced Transportation Technology.
Delcan.NET is in the second year of a $5.7-million US pilot project using the technology in Baltimore, and is negotiating a contract with Missouri. The company says other states and provinces are interested in the system.
For the technology to work, Delcan.NET must obtain signal data from cellphone providers. With an algorithm developed by Israeli-based ITIS Holdings, Delcan.NET converts the signals from the cars into travel speeds and times. In Maryland, Delcan.NET is working with Cingular. The accuracy of the system is expected to be plus-or-minus 16 km/h, allowing traffic co-ordinators to watch in real time as traffic problems begin.
While initially the signals will be used to ease traffic problems, Richard Mudge, a vice-president with Delcan.NET, envisions someday downloading the traffic information to a car’s onboard computer or to drivers’ PDAs (personal digital assistants).
He also believes businesses with fleets of vehicles would buy the data to manage routing and travel times. “There’s a whole host of ways this data will be used,” he said.
Delcan.NET is creating a database for Maryland that will integrate cellphone signal information with existing fixed traffic sensors, cameras, the 911 emergency response system and public transit information. Such data would allow transportation departments to determine, among other things, whether buses are on schedule in real-time.
Michael Zezeski, a director with the Maryland State Highway Administration, said they are watching the project closely to see if it presents a compelling business case. “Up until now, when we’ve worked with these private-public partnerships, we have found the data has just not been good enough for people willing to subscribe or pay for it.”
But with what Zezeski calls “dynamic information” being fed into onboard car computers, people might suddenly want to subscribe to a traffic data service. Or an Internet service provider or public transport agency might wish to purchase the data to pass on to subscribers.
Not everyone is happy with the experiment. Kevin Bankston, a lawyer with the U.S.-based Electronic Frontier Freedom advocacy group, argues the project is turning cellphones into tracking devices. “This kind of project is just the first step in the building of a technical infrastructure for a surveillance society where the government knows your every move based on your cellphone,” he said.
Nor does Bankston accept that people might be willing to give up some of their privacy for a better morning commute. “None of these people are choosing this. It’s being chosen for them. At the very least the phone company’s customers should have a choice to opt out of this and not have their information be a part of this project.”
Tarnoff said Delcan.NET has gone to great lengths to ensure that the cellphone data remain anonymous. The phone information is not being shared with any legal agencies, and as soon as the data is collected any association between information and a particular subscriber is eliminated.
© The Vancouver Sun 2005
