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Project turns GPS phones into traffic reporters

Opens to the public on Monday

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By Robert McMillan
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November 6, 2008 (IDG= News Service) = =20 Researchers from Nokia Corp. and t= he Univ= ersity of California, Berkeley, will go live with a new project next we= ek that aims to cull GPS data from thousands of mobile phones in order to t= ell drivers which San Francisco Bay Area roads are backed up and which are = moving along.

Called Mobile= Millennium, the project will be opened to the public on Monday.

Researchers hope that thousands of volunteers will download a free Java pr= ogram that figures out by their movement and location when they are driving= and then transmits that information to the project's servers, which t= hen crunch it into a Bay Area traffic map. The software uses algorithms to = determine when people are moving, stuck in traffic or stopped by the roadsi= de, for example.

California has already invested heavily in sensors = that help monitor traffic conditions on major roadways, but they're no= t everywhere. By collecting traffic information from GPS phones on roads th= at don't have sensors, the team hopes to gain insight into places that= are now blind spots for most commuters.

Researchers will start by l= ooking for data on heavily trafficked commutes such as Page Mill Road and t= he Oregon Expressway, which cut through the heart of Palo Alto, Calif. If e= nough volunteers download the software, the researchers could eventually bu= ild a comprehensive picture of Bay Area traffic conditions.

"T= he 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 at Nokia in Pal= o Alto.

The system doesn't require many users, but it helps if = they're spread out, as researchers will need the right concentration o= f reports. The Mobile Millennium team expects to have 10,000 participants b= y April. "At that rate, we'll see many of these arterial roads wi= th accurate, real-time data," Jacobson said.

While the idea of = streaming data about their whereabouts may make some people uneasy, researc= hers say they've taken steps to keep the system anonymous. None of the= data in the system can be tied to a particular mobile phone, they said.

The researchers have been testing the traffic reporting system every f= ew weeks over the past year, including a large field test in February.

Mobile Mi= llennium's data will be available on the Web, but users who want the b= est data will have to download the Java software, Jacobson said. The softwa= re will eventually work on most GPS-enabled phones that run on GSM (Global = System for Mobile communications) networks, such as those from T-Mobile and AT&T. On Monday, the software will run on Nokia and BlackBerry ph= ones, but the team expects to add many other devices to the list.

The= team is discussing an iPhone port as well, a= lthough this will not be available on Monday, Jacobson said.

Because= Mobile Millennium phones do a lot of traffic reporting, only users with un= limited data plans are advised to sign up.

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Reprinted with permission from

= IDG.net
Story copyright 2008 International Data Group. Al= l rights reserved.

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