Phone congestion

Nokia and UC Berkeley researchers have tested technology that could soon transform the way drivers navigate through congested highways and obtain information about road conditions.

One hundred cars equipped with a GPS-enabled Nokia N95, and driven by students from the University of California, travelled a 10 mile stretch of road near San Francisco to show how real-time traffic information can be collected from a GPS feed, while preserving the privacy of the devices' owners.

During the experiment, special software on the mobile devices periodically sent anonymous speed and location readings from the Nokia N95 to servers.The feeds were then combined to create a real-time picture of traffic speeds and projected travel times.

The experiment was carried out to test the traffic data collection and aggregation system, while studying the trade-offs between data accuracy, personal privacy, and data collection costs. The software aggregating the GPS feeds immediately disassociates the data from an individual device and combines it with the general stream of traffic data. To protect privacy, all data is anonymous and aggregated, and protected by encryption.