TomTom and Vodafone UK Introduce Advanced Traffic Data Syste

Darren · London, UK, 26 June 2007

TomTom and Vodafone UK announced today that they are to jointly develop a new traffic information system that will deliver superior travel time information to UK road users.

This agreement will allow TomTom to use information from the Vodafone UK network to provide accurate, real-time information on the speed and direction of cars travelling on all major roads across the UK. As a result customers will have a better understanding of the exact traffic situation and be able to plan and change their route instantly to avoid traffic congestion.

We first heard of this new solution at CeBIT back in March and it sounds quite promising. what is the first thing you do when you're on the way to the office or a meeting and you gets tuck in traffic? Phone someone. Now using some very clever software it allows TomTom to analyse data from Vodafone's network to identify actual road speeds and as a result provide real-time indication of congestion to subscribers.

Here is the text of the full press release:

SpikeyMikey · Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2007 9:31 am Post subject:

Thanks for the info Darren,

Does this system basically use GPRS, the same as I do now with O2, except with Vodaphone supplying the info instead of a third party?

I'm not completely up to date on the methods used, so a laymans approach would be appreciated.

Thanks

Mike
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Mike
TT GO6000 (Europe); iPhone and iPad Pro with iOS TT GO & MyDrive + CamerAlert

Darren · Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2007 9:41 am Post subject:

I'd guess that this will be a service delivered via GPRS yes. It will still be a subscription service supplied by TomTom but whether it is in addition to the data supplied by iTIS for their existing Traffic PLUS Service remains to be seen. Again another guess but I'd expect the two would be used together.

We talked to their development bods about this at CeBIT and it was very interesting. The data is only available from phones that make active calls, until then I'd assumed they could gather data from all phones whether in call or not. Apparently there is more than sufficient data from phones making calls to provide a very accurate real-time map of traffic patterns, actual road speeds etc.

And the beauty of this solution is the worse the jam, the more vehicles are stuck in it and hence the more calls are made!
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Darren Griffin

philpugh · Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2007 1:26 pm Post subject:

Interesting idea, with quite a bit of potential.

I wonder how they distinguish between non-moving mobiles close to a road and those on the road? If they only use information each time a phone is handed from one GSM cell to another they run the risk of missing a completely blocked road.

Also they don't need to wait for people to use their 'phone. Having it switched on is enough to be roughly geo-located using GSM technology
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Phil

philpugh · Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2007 1:44 pm Post subject:

Darren · Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2007 2:32 pm Post subject:

MaFt · Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2007 3:38 pm Post subject:

trevor.dowle · Lifetime Member Joined: 16/06/2003 05:22:14 Posts: 412

Gurj · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 02, 2003 Posts: 7

Was thinking about something like this the other week.

In standby handsets perform periodic location updates. This alone can give some level of individual handset movement information (e.g. a user driving down the M1 can be see to perform periodic and needed location updates as they pass through lots of cells). The network should they be inclined could anonymise this information together with all other mobiles passing these same cells and work out *real* journey times between stretches of the main routes. It would need to be statistical because individual users may stop for a break or leave the main routes. This could work for any roads not just motorways.

Another possibility is that only instantaneous data is used, in that even a mobile performing a location update does so through a short duration connection to the Base Station. During this connection, timing and direction information can be deduced. This is the same information as during a voice call. On top of this the networks can "page" a mobile to force it to temporarily connect (not for a call) and this could be done more often when traffic flow is being deduced.

Scary though it is, the movement of everyones mobile could be tracked and recorded (Big Brother are you watching!) and one view of this data would be to determine traffic data. Hopefully privacy and data protection laws safe guard as.

Darren · Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 9:09 am Post subject:

NickG · Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 9:30 am Post subject:

I've always wondered why they don't collect data from the TomTom devices themselves. Around cities, a huge amount of people seem to have TomTom devices installed and if they subscribe to Traffic then I think it should also send your position, direction and average speed over the last couple of minutes. This would only be a few bytes of extra data to send but I'm sure could be used to enhance the traffic information on roads which are not covered by TrafficMaster.

Darren · Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 9:34 am Post subject:

Indeed, I guess the only issues here are anonymity etc. This type of data could also help identify areas where the mapping is incorrect!
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Darren Griffin

NickG · Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 9:40 am Post subject:

Yes, I've been trying to get TeleAtlas to correct some one-way streets for about 5 years now. If TomTom had seen 20,000 people drive down the street the wrong way, I'm sure they could have an algorithm which automatically corrects the data whenever this happens!

Same goes for new roads. Even if they can't collect the street name, if 10 cars drive down a road which isn't on TomToms maps, you have some extremely accurate data with which they could easily and automatically build an "unnamed road" which could then be named by users using MapShare following it's release!

The whole system could be so much better but they just don't seem very keen to make use of the data they could collect.

I know there are some privacy zealots around, but I suspect most people would be prepared to opt in to this service if they new it would help TomTom correct problems with roads in their area. The data for new roads could be sent anonymously anyway and collected when you dock your tomtom so it wouldn't even use up your GPRS bill.

Gmonkey · Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 10:21 pm Post subject:

GPS_fan · Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 7:43 am Post subject:

I wonder what our friends at iTIS and Trafficmaster think of this idea.

iTIS have made a few contributions to the TMC forum, but Trafficmaster have yet to put in an appearance.

One question though - if I'm WALKING along a road, how would this system know that whether I'm walking or sitting in a traffic jam? What about all those Vodafone users talking on their phones at service stations?

It sounds good in theory, but I'm not sure just how well it will work in practice.

Edit: oops, that was 2 questions - time to take my shoes and socks off to start counting properly Laughing

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Andy
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