Traffic work research

Your mobile will proactively advise you that you are meeting so-and-so at 10 a.m. and that traffic is picking up, so you should leave right now. It will than route you based on real-time traffic flow data to avoid jams.

This is the promise, which Nokia is making on it's current research regarding traffic data. In a joint effort by Nokia Research, Berkeley University of California and CalTrans (the California Transportation Authority), mobile phones with built-in GPS are used to collect real-time movement data, which then serves as the input for (hopefully :-) sophisticated algorythms to calculate the traffic map of the area. Once you have the traffic map, you can feed this information back for routing (avoiding traffic jams) and better trip time estimation (how much it really takes to get to point B). After you have real-time and historical traffic map data, you can then use it for anything location-based, like meetings, todo items (combined with GPS Action) or even meeting friends (the "Meet me" function).

Why does Nokia research real-time traffic?

Besides the technological challenge which makes the researchers tick, there are two real problems today, which need to be answered. One is the customer need to spend less time in traffic jams (and reduce the stress of arriving on time), the second is the cost for navigation companies to provide traffic info.

Estimations say traffic jams cost $68-78 billion per year in the US only (62 hours per driver per year)
In Los Angeles, the estimated average wasted time was 93 hours per driver in 2004
The difference between rush-hour and normal traffic speed is around 5-times
The most common traffic-avoiding techniques are rerouting or going earlier/later
Real-time traffic info licence cost 20 EUR per year for Nokia Maps, about 40 EUR for other providers
Today, traffic information is mainly collected by roadside sensors for a limited number of roads
However, GPS has also limited coverage (like tunnels, urban canyons)

Frankly speaking, I would be totally happy today, if the trip time would have a better estimation - why is it always using the average based on the speed limit and not my actual speed? :-)

Who else is working on real-time traffic?

According to some research companies, Nokia is considered as the most innovative company in navigation software. Yet, there are several bets in the LBS (location based services) domain right now.

Tomtom's High Definition Traffic service is based on agreement with Vodafone to collect and use anonymous cellphone signals for predicting movement speed. (Your mobile supplies data even if it is in your pocket, which is then received by Tomtom customers as live traffic data.)
Dash had collected real-time traffic data from it's customers (via Dash Express devices) and was considered one of the most advanced solutions. A combination of cellular network and wi-fi connections meant live updates for all users of the Dash Driver Network. Unfortunately, Dash has just announced that they will stop selling devices and will only focus on licencing their technology.
Inrix is a data and service supplier for automobile and portable navigation devices, combining GPS, road-sensor, toll gate and cellphone data to provide real-time and historical reports for the US.

So, when will you see it on your phone?

Nokia's Mobile Millenium research hopes to reach 10,000 pilot users by April 2009, while the project is expected to run until April 2010. If you live and drive in the San Francisco Bay Area, then you can have it today, by volunteering and downloading the pilot software. It's available for several Nokia S60 devices (like the E71, N95 or N96) and some Blackberry phones and Java-enabled devices. (Not the iPhone, though - it doesn't support Java.) For the rest of the US or the world - well, we should wait for it patiently :-)

amby’s posterous

amby’s posterous