Mobile Phone Tracking Predicts Road Traffic Conditions

Australian mobile network operator, Optus has started to monitor road traffic conditions by collected anonymously from mobile phones.

Covering over 70,000 km of roadway, the system will be branded Optus Traffic View (OTV) and has been available since last month.

The system has been under trial with Optus since late 2006.

Using ITIS TrafficScience Cellular Floating Vehicle Data (CFVD) technology, Traffic Intelligence and Optus are generating traffic information from anonymously processing signalling information from the Optus mobile network. This is the first commercial deployment of cellular traffic technology to utilise both 2G and 3G mobile data and an independent quality report produced by the Australian Research Board (ARRB) has shown that the system is producing extremely high quality traffic information.

By sampling the location of a mobile phone over a period of time, the route and velocity at which the phone is travelling can be determined. While an individual record of a mobile phone's position is typically less accurate than that of a corresponding GPS record, this is compensated for by the large number of mobile phones on any road, knowledge of the underlying road network and the application of statistical techniques.

Commenting, Stuart Marks, Chief Executive of ITIS said: "The launch of a nationwide service in conjunction with Traffic Intelligence and Optus represents a major achievement for ITIS and demonstrates our ability to successfully penetrate markets outside the UK. The initial results provided by the ARRB are very encouraging and serve to show how accurate the ITIS technology can be in detecting traffic flow information using data from cellular networks."