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Cell phones used to track traffic 193

Posted by jimjag from the Hello-411-where-am-I? dept.
scm alerted us to a story in the San Jose Mercury News about some new technology which uses the reflected signals from cell phones to map traffic patterns. But it also seems to be able to track individual users as well by mapping those reflections to their physical location. Wonder which use will be the most "valuable"?
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Cell phones used to track traffic More

Cell phones used to track traffic

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  • You're making an incorrect assumption as to how it is determined that there is congestion. According to the article, congestion is determined not by the amount of cell activity in a given area, but by how fast each cellphone is moving. Therefore, congestion in south SF will be just as accurately determined as congestion in downtown San Jose.
  • It's a bad idea because of an existing system; but imagine how expensive and time consuming (both in terms of detours and costly manpower) it would be to implement this system in Boston or NYC. Using modern Fluid Dynamics and a modified version of Fluent (tm), these cities could take the data from cell phones and come up with a great picture of traffic.

    As for being able to "see" a vehicle pulled over on the pavement, you should know better. A sensor grid with 1/2 mile resolution will detect "rubbernecking" and tell you where the accident is, and the smount of traffic in the next 1/2-mile long section will tell you if any lanes are blocked, but you can't tell what kind of accident it is until (a) an officer shows up and radios it in, or (b) a cab-driver radios it in, or (c) a civilian calls in on a cell phone.

    As for Baltimore, DC, Atlanta, Boston, NYC, Hartford (oh God... not Hartford!), the cities all have major traffic problems every day, and to my knowledge, there's no system in place to gauge it yet. There are radar guns on overpasses on sections of I-95S, but not enough to establish the kind of resolution that a grid of cell phones would provide.

    I agree that LA's system is cool, but think about the future and the economics of the situation before you flame any new large-scale project.

    --Jurph
    (engineer by trade, geek by the grace of god)
  • Oh, Gawd... I already posted this to the guy who claimed his existing system was better.

    Which is cheaper:
    1) [Manpower to dig holes all over Boston and place sensors + time lost to detours + wiring a solid-state sensor grid into a computer + having to do it all again for each new section of roadway] * [resolution of the sensor grid]^2

    OR

    2) Buying a data collection system (computer, antenna, keyboard, monitor... mouse) that reads data from a satellite that's *already paid for*, and letting your citizens buy the sensors (phones)?

    Come on now. Always think of infrastructure, cost to implement, future growth, and all of the real ugly real-world variables before flaming any large-scale project.

    Jurph
    Mechanical Engineer / Professional Bone Head
  • We've had these things for like, forever. I had always heard that they detected the electricity from the vehicle's engine using some kind of buried coil. I guess Weight would work, too.

    Nipok Nek
  • In London, every single road in and out of the city is under surveillance by closed circuit TV cameras. It is largely believed that an automated image recognition system is used to check every licence plate on every car entering or leaving the city. Plates that are matched to a watch list get flagged and that vehicle is tracked by CCTV as it moves through the city.
  • The KCBS news radio version of the story told of a subscription service that would call the cell phone of every subscriber who was headed into traffic congestion to warn them of it.

    (Just what you need - a cell phone call to distract you as you approach the turn behind which traffic is stalled...)

    Seems to me that makes it obvious that the system knows perfectly well where each customer is, indexed by the phone's identification.

    The cells have always been able to locate you within a couple miles - by signal strength. This was necessary to select the cell that handled your calls. A little hardware and software upgrade to each cell makes it possible to know your location within feet.

    Knowing your location within miles is enough for phone calls, but not particularly useful to the police for tracking or apprehension. Knowing it within feet serves both purposes.

    But knowing it within feet requires a hardware and software upgrade to essentially ALL the cell base stations - an upgrade that isn't necessary for their mission. That CO$T$.

    So the government is mandating the instalation of the extra equipment. And they're looking for an excuse to make it palatable. Traffic statistics is their latest trial balloon.

    I don't know what it's like where YOU live. But here in the S.F. Bay area there are already cameras watching traffic along all the major freeways and many non-freewayintersections (and which were often rotated to look at the surrounding neighorhoods, until it was noticed and commented on), under-pavement speed sensors ditto to control the metering lights, regular helicopter patrols during rush hours (which is much of the day here) by both the police and services feeding the radio stations, and police helicopter patrols much of the night.

    All that confiscated money and property has bought a LOT of "cop equipment".

    They need more traffic info from an expensive forced hardware and software tap on the cell phone systems about as much as Custer needed more Indians. (And how DO you separate "traffic congestion" from people with cell phones walking?)

    But for tracking a suspect - or anyone else they don't like who happened to have a cellular phone - it's ideal.

    A system that measures the location of the phones closely enough to monitor traffic - and call the phones of particular people who are approaching "traffic congestion" - can provide such tracking information on individuals, with no more than a minor software addition at a central site. Nothing is detectable outside the site except the polling of the cell phones - and the "traffic" application give them an excuse for that.

    Anyone who tries to capture and reverse engineer the central site software to audit it for individual-tracking capability can expect the same treatment as Mitnick. So don't expect to find out about the individual-tracking capability until it's been in regular use for so long that they don't mind exposing it.

    By the way: Did you know that some of the popular cell-phone models can be turned into room bugs by remote control?

  • That's not necessarily correct. I recall some studies having been done that indicate that the way people pay attention is different when talking on the phone as opposed to talking personally. The study tracked how much time cell phone users spent looking at the road ahead of them.

    Presumably this depends on the individual. The study also suggests that having a hands-free device does not really help this problem. I am all for banning cell phone use by drivers while a vehicle is in motion.

    Yeah. I know - should have the url for that, but I don't :-)

  • Tracking congestion... (Score:4)

    by TheDullBlade ( 28998 ) on Saturday January 22, 2000 @09:43PM (#1345916)
    Does that mean that a dead-halt traffic jam will look exactly the same as a responsible driver pulling over to use the phone?
  • You're right, I misunderstood their initial method. Although, hypothetically, depending on a turned-on cell phone being in the area is still a statistical risk, although nowhere near as great.

  • Before you say No Way. (Score:3)

    by Mullen ( 14656 ) on Saturday January 22, 2000 @09:50PM (#1345918)
    Mapping where someone's Cell Phone can and does save lives. People stuck in mountains, snow, and other places where the owners of the phone don't know where they are. If they can't keep track of you by phone number, then what is the big whoop?
  • I also asked the same question, but looking at wired online, i realized what he's talking about. It isn't illegalize, but there is a SMALL possibilty that it may become illegalized. BILLs have been proposed to legislators, but, there is strong opposition to some of the bills. Article [wired.com] at Wired online. [wired.com]
  • The system has some way of keeping track of which phone is which, be it the number or some other indentifier that is mapped one-to-one with the numbers. When they say "it has no idea of whose phone it is or the number", they really mean it's just not currently displayed to the operator of the system. If they had the desire, it would be trivial to display that information.
  • Here in Minnesota we were smart enough to put sensors under the roads, and these are all hooked up to MDOT, Minnesota Department of Transportation. No need for a gunkulator when a simple sensor will do the trick. See for you self.

    http://www.startribune.com/news/traffic/cgi/load _template.cgi?zone=dot

    Bone heads will always find a more expensive way to do things when they can get money.
  • people were more voting against the other to then for Jesse

  • Except that there is some overlap between cell antennas - if you have three and can gauge range by signal strength you can triangulate a position quite easily.

    That's about as easy as it gets. Back in the CB days we used this find the bastards with the 200W transmitters who kept talking over the people who actually had something to say.

    Hol.

  • Is the ability of the government/law enforcement/whoever to track where you are a good thing? Well.. the gut feeling is 'no.. that tramples on my righrs, right?'

    Let me pose a different perspective.

    First, regarding the cellular phone tracking stuff. Well.... You *are* using a phone that *broadcasts* over RF, which is an inherently *public* medium, and physics says there are ways to locate you if your signal can be isolated. So...scientifically speaking.. you do *NOT* have a reasonable expectation that your location is hidden. Now.. yes, the telco records that say what the signature of your phone is, your ESN, things like that.. should *ABSOLUTELY* be private. That's beteween you and your cel provider... but aside from that.... anyone with the right gear can know that a) someone is using a phone nearby and b) where they are.
    So.. should this information be in the hands of the government only? Traffic reporters only? No...
    it should be publicly available to anyone. ie: how many calls are going on I98? Hwy#4? How dense? Sure... as long as the database is *publicyly funded* and *publicly* available, and not monoploized.
  • xcept that there is some overlap between cell antennas - if you have three and can gauge range by signal strength you can triangulate a position quite easily.

    Relative signal strength has one disadvantage - it is affected by the number of buildings in the line of sight between the phone and the receiver.

    However, one of the Danish GSM operators offers a product where the rate is halved at the phones home address. As far as I know, the location is based on distance from the closest three GSM cells. The measuring, which apperantly has a resolution of 10 meters, is found by timing the signals exchanged between phone and antenna during signal-strength evaluation.
  • As I understand it.. analog phones emit a constant carrier/beacon/whatever.
    Digital phones only receive, except when they periodically send out signals to keep things working right, let the system know where they are, etc.. (one reason you get SOO Much more battery life out of a phone in digital mode)
  • And I quote:

    ``It has no idea of whose phone it is or the number,'' he said. ``Compare it to a helicopter flying overhead monitoring traffic. It can see all the cars and how fast they're moving but has no idea who is driving that car. It just sees the traffic.''

    So there you go, all you paranoid fanatic peoples can rest easy now.
  • From the article (my emphases):


    It requires that users have a new phone equipped with the GPS technology but allows users to turn the locating system on and off at their leisure, bringing home the issue of privacy for the cell phone user.

    With U.S. Wireless' system, the phone is always being tracked, Cunningham said.

    ``It's constantly monitoring location,'' Cunningham said. ``With ours, it's only working when you want it to. You push the button when you want to be found.''

    Brunato says the RadioCamera system doesn't recognize the phone user for traffic management purposes.

    ``It has no idea of whose phone it is or the number,'' he said. ``Compare it to a helicopter flying overhead monitoring traffic. It can see all the cars and how fast they're moving but has no idea who is driving that car. It just sees the traffic.''

    Sure, you Americans have all reason to be paranoid about everything, I grant you that. But every technology has potential to be applied to both "good" and "evil". This one seems useful enough for you guys to take the risk.

    Me, I'd be surprised if it reached this tropical hellhole called Brazil within the decade. Heh.
  • I doubt it. No information is being extracted from the conversation.
    This is analogous to someone saying simply 'someone is on the phone on this line'. Does that constitute tapping?

    As for the silly us 'wiretapping' laws....
    What idiot decided that radio broadcasts on standard modulation were in any way 'private'?

    I believe here in the Great Empire of Canada, any cel conversation can be intercepted legally, as there is *no* reasonable expectation of privacy, because it is wireless.

  • Mapping where someone's Cell Phone can and does save lives. People stuck in mountains, snow, and other places where the owners of the phone don't know where they are.

    Sure, and if I were to go into the mountains, snow, and other places (which I won't -- nasty, uncomforable things that make you late for dinner...) I'll authorize (Hey, cool, a duck just dropped from the ceiling with a $100 bill in its beak!) tracking. Not otherwise.
    /.

  • This is highly unreliable (Score:4)

    by zyqqh ( 137965 ) on Saturday January 22, 2000 @09:08PM (#1345939)
    They're making a very error-prone assumption that cell phones are distributed uniformly, or at least approximately uniformly, throughout the Bay Area. I will guarantee you that a jam in downtown of San Jose will be reported even if there's a slight slowdown, and a jam around some less well-off areas (e.g. south SF) is quite likely to go completely unnoticed. And it appears more or less impossible to make adjustments for this; so what data comes out of this system should be double checked at the very least.

  • As if it wasn't bad enough having my buying habits tracked and my mailbox stuffed, electronic or otherwise. (I've been getting AARP stuff since before I could drink...)

    Don't get me wrong, I'm a technofile, it's just the application of the technology that I have a problem with...

    I guess if some shmuck locks me in my own trunk, they can trace my call and find me. Then again, if I'm not female, said shumck would just kill me first and save the trouble.

    Now, if I could turn this off and on like a transponder, or better yet, have some type of digital connection similar to TCP where my phone can refuse requests from unauthorized trackers, then THAT would be good. Quick, somebody write a standard!

    TC

    ----------
    Damm glad I don't live in Australia right now.
  • There is no "law" of probability. Laws are our feeble attempts at guessing what is really happening. In reality, there is no "law of motion", "law of gravity", and CERTAINLY no "law of probability". Even things like dimensions are totally arbitrary and nonexistent (the universe doesn't constantly crunch numbers through "F=ma", and when I turn the handle to flush the toilet, don't try and tell me there's a rotation matrix or a quaternion governing what it does... such a system could not naturally exist, and even an *unnatural* one, if traced back far enough, would be revealed to have a more fundamental essence to it) but that's beside the point. But as others have stated... there is no automatic correlation between geography and cell phones. I guess the method could be used to get some really rough numbers tho. What do I care how they spend their money... It's like voting. What if Clinton hadn't won? Big freaking deal. My computer still runs fine.... ;) Anyway, if done right, this cellphone thing could be at least *decent*...
    ( end rant )

  • This is a really stupid idea (Score:5)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Saturday January 22, 2000 @10:15PM (#1345947) Homepage
    And the Mercury News should have known better. For starters, most major California cities already have real-time freeway traffic monitoring. [ca.gov] In LA, the freeway speed map is on a cable channel. There are detector loops in the pavement every half mile on major freeways. It's the same technology used at traffic lights. The data collected is basically vehicle speed and vehicle length (car vs. truck), and from this data traffic density and spacing can be extracted. Accidents are immediately visible as a big change in speed from one section to the next. This is a huge help; detecting an accident immediately and getting a tow truck there fast is worth an extra lane, and costs much less. The busier freeways also have TV cameras.

    Just to give a sense of how much information is already available online, here's a current incident report from the California Highway Patrol: [ca.gov]


    (1179) Traffic Collision - Ambulance Responding
    Incident: 3053 Location: EB I580 JWO GRAND AV Map Page: 649 3J Info as of: 01/22/00 11:05 PM
    ADDITIONAL DETAILS

    11:03 pm - 1039 PITOS W/FLTBD ON EXP
    11:02 pm - #5 BLOCKED / ROLL 1185 ON EXP
    11:00 pm - PER RP - MIN INJ -- ROLLING 1141
    10:59 pm - RP ADVS VEH PARTIALLY BLKG RT LN
    10:57 pm - 2 ADDTL VEHS PULLED OVER AS WELL
    10:57 pm - ON RHS
    10:57 pm - NEG VEHS BLOCKING


    RESPONDING OFFICERS STATUS
    10:59 pm - CHP Unit Enroute
    11:00 pm - CHP Unit Enroute
    11:01 pm - CHP Unit On Scene

    So getting simple traffic data from cell phones is totally unnecessary and inferior to the systems in place.

  • Cell phones are quite insidious as it is. You can already be tracked by it.. Pinpointing your location etc. I think its easier to NOT have a cell phone or Pager. Ive had huge arguments with work over it and I quit a job for it. *shrugs* I like things simply
  • I don't have all the specific details for either system, but based on experience I can tell you that:

    a) The system in place in LA is partial and expensive.

    b) LA is far ahead of most cities, especially relative to the East coast, particularly Philadelphia. The way this cellphone system is described, it could be implimented on the cheap, and without having to mobilize PennDOT (et. al) to get off their asses and do something.

    c) A high resolution (per car) system, such as the one described in the article, could be extremely usefull in designing proper freeways. You could get a computer to analyze how each cars interact with one another at particular on and offramps, intersections, etc on a LARGE scale (I don't know of any other system that can claim this). Imagine if you could collect and compile computer data over a period of a month showing that 99% of cars merge left, cutting across traffic, resulting in slowdowns of 20%....you get the point. There are many freeways in Philly, where, for nominal expenses (e.g., traffic light, divider, better lanes, bumping it up a few feet, etc.), they could redesign the traffic flow and alleve traffic concerns considerably, using this type of data.
  • Actually, I read that the vehicle sensors are basically metal detectors placed under the road. There are wire loops that create a magnetic field, and when your car with its big metal engine and frame passes over it disrupts the magnetic field. This creates a signal to the traffic light controller so it knows that there are cars passing through the intersection.
  • Er... I knew that! :)
  • ...joke [theonion.com] was funnier.

  • sorry, but you're wrong. (Score:3)

    by FallLine ( 12211 ) on Sunday January 23, 2000 @01:23PM (#1345957)
    /* disclaimer: I'm not a crypto buff */

    GSM cell phones are more than just the GSM voice encoding algorithm. These other security measures include: Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying (GMSK) digital modulation, slow frequency hopping, and Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) time slot architecture. While i'm aware that they can be broken, it's not nearly as trivial as using a simple modified CB radio scanner. For more information, check out:

    http://www.semionoff.com/cellular/hacking/phreak ing/gsm-secur.html
  • Although, hypothetically, depending on a turned-on cell phone being in the area is still a statistical risk, although nowhere near as great.

    If there's traffic congestion, there will be more people, increasing the likelihood that there's a cellphone in use. Congestion causes delays, making it more likely that cell phones will be in use.

    If there are no cell phones to track, chances are good that there's no congestion, which is also useful information.

  • Of course not!
    Rule #1: Never read the story/links on slashdot. Reading the caption alone is enough.

    'cos while you're out reading a story all right thinking people are *already* posting their comments. And when you're back *your* posting will be in a third hundred or so and who reads slashdot that far?
    So - if you actually read stories your comments will be lost in void.

  • Another tool for the Big Brother and his Revenue Collection Gestapo^H^H^H^H^LAW ENFORCEMENT officers to use against us!

    I'll just remain out of touch thank you. That way I can actually pay attention to what's going on down the roadway here. And I can avoid all those morons who are cruising at 80mph in their little SUVs and yakking away.

    What? Me? Prejudiced against cellular-totin', SUV drivin' fools? DAMN STRAIGHT!


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!

  • I happen to live in PA, but I have a beach house in NJ. Having driven through there numerous times, and being stopped by their cops (who are all too happy to give out tickets), I can tell you that they've never even attempted to give me a ticket for such a thing, even when they've seen me do it. I'm aware that there is a Bill pending, but on last check it is in NJ's Assembly Committee on Transportation. Furthermore, I suspect an outright ban will never pass. Many states are pushing for such legislation, but they'll probably merely ban the use of hand helds (e.g., you can only use it if it's on speaker phone in a cradle). Which I basically agree with.
  • The system was put in for ramp metering, therfore it has already been paid for. The computers already exist, and just using this data in a different way is for more accurate then guessing about cell phones which would require a large amount of computational resource, since it trying to recognize images from signals, sort of like voice recongnition. Therfore using cell phones is a boneheaded idea, for some areas, it is probably not very accurate, and there is cost in setting up the cell phone system. If the infrastructure exists already using it to give good data is not expesive at all.

  • Do the Perople who's cell phones are being tracked have to be useing them? By my understand, it is illegal to use a mobile phone whilt moving (At least it is in britian), so surely this should raise questions to this leglistation. I do understand that some people use "hands free" kits and also the phones could be being used by the passengers so these things need to be taken into account. My final point is also, how will they be able to distinguish between people walking, on skates, cycling, on trains and on busses, It seems to me that there are too many variables for this to be taken too seriously!
  • A couple of years ago I remember hearing about Swiss phone companies that were routinely logging locations of Phones. The information would have been available to the Police or whoever. Just how accurately could you locate someone using the GSM system this way. Would you only be able to say they are using this base station, or could you narrow it to within a few hundred metres?
  • My final point is also, how will they be able to distinguish between people walking, on skates, cycling, on trains and on busses, It seems to me that there are too many variables for this to be taken too seriously!

    In the US it is usually illegal to walk, skate or bike on a major highway. Definitely on the toll roads. And buses would react to a trafic jam the same as any other vehicle, so I don't see the problem there. For the purpose stated in the article.

  • Much better! My only complaint is about your use of first and second instead of car and cadr. Also, if you're having RAM problems, you might want to consider a smaller dialect such as Scheme, for which there are many excellent interactive systems available as Free Software. Scheme is also conceptually nicer and easier to learn (The Revised[5] Report on Scheme is only 50 pages, about the same size as the index of Common Lisp: the Language).
  • this problem is already solved -- 'weight sensors' that turn on during certain parts of the day. When I first heard about these, I thought it was ridiculous, but sure enough, you can go out (at least in my town) and observe it there is a wieght sensor at most lights.
  • hrm... I was under the impression those sensors were only used to switch lights. They only cover a very minor portion and from what I understand about them can't really be used to tell traffic. I could be wrong though.
  • Oh, lisp d00d, get a copy of the Little Lisper (or the Little Schemer). It will make you a happy lisp d00d. Plus it is just highly entertaining. Programming a la Dr. Seuss.
  • What, do you think that prior to this product announcement, it was impossible to track you around by your cell phone?

    We can't have it both ways, folks; if we want to have the freedom to do whatever we want with any radio transmission we pick up, then we cannot say that the government shouldn't be able to do the same.

    If you don't want to be tracked, don't broadcast.

    If you want to broadcast, resign yourself to the fact that you can be tracked.

  • Already being done in 1994. (Score:3)

    by reg ( 5428 ) <reg@freebsd.org> on Saturday January 22, 2000 @11:03PM (#1345982) Homepage
    This is nothing really new. The technology for the location of cellular phones has been around since they were first implemented.

    A pilot project to asses the viability of doing this in Washington DC was underway in 1994.

    http://www.itsdocs.fhwa.dot.gov/jpodocs/repts_te /1zs01!.pdf

    A panel discussion was held at the recent Transportation Research Board meeting in Washington DC (Concurrent session No. 414). Unfortunately notes from panel discussions are seldom published.
    http://www.nationalacademies.org/trb/ftp/am/All_Se ssions.pdf

    For those worried about their cars being tracked, I suggest starting at:

    http://www.its.dot.gov/

    Intelligent Transportation Systems are currently a multi billion dollar area of research. With any luck, in some years time you wont be able to get a speeding ticket, because you wont be driving. It will be too dangerous for humans to drive on the highways of the future - they don't have dependable reactions.

    Regards,
    -Jeremy
  • I worked briefly on a project with the Memphis/Shelby County 911 office. They wanted to develop an application that would pinpoint the location of a person making a call to 911 from a cellular phone. They have had troubles in the past locating people on cell phones, primarily because the person calling may not know the nearest address or street intersection. Another motive behind this project was to help filter calls from people about traffic accidents. In some cases they might get 30 calls from cell phone users concerning a single traffic incident. With the proper mapping technology, they could pinpoint the caller and send a message saying "if you are calling about the accident at such and such intersection, we are taking care of it. if you have an emergency, please stay on the line". Kind of interesting applications but I took another job before they got too far along in the development.
  • I was under the impression that cell phones always send out signals in order to keep in contact with/find the nearest tower. So doesn't that mean that people don't even have to be talking for this to work? Could someone clarify this for me please.

    In general cellular phones will send a registration message to their closest tower, and will start monitoring the control channel of that tower. Once the signal becomes weak (for example, as you are getting further from one tower), the phone will scan for towers again and will pick the strongest one, and will register again. It will also register just to indicate that it's powered on every now and then anyway. This transmition takes a very small amount of time.

    This is mostly true for analog cellular. Digital systems have improved this process to increase battery life and reduce control channel congestion. Depending on the technology, you might see very few registrations after the initial one. I believe GSM won't even register with every new cell it enters, because the provider groups a whole bunch of cells together and the phone needs to register only when it crosses group boundaries. So it sounds to me like this is not sufficient for this use, but what do I know...

  • Everyone remember the infamous "White Bronco Chase" that led to the stupidest media frenzy of the century?

    Well it started with tracking his cell phone when he called a friend. This is nothing new, so if the men in black want to track you, they're already doing it. Get over it, or don't get a cell phone.
  • If the US hasn't already given all their excess vowels to Croatia, I suggest they sprinkle some into those traffic reports.
    --
  • I was fairly suprised to only now see this get posted on Slashdot, since this is happening on a daily basis in Israel (where Cell Phones are very popular and ~75% of the population has one of those dammed things...).
    The companies can pin-point a specific # (the exact resolution of this varies depending on the amount and power of near-by antennaes and on the geographical position of the requested phone), and often do, on the request of the Police/Army (they don't even demand a warren or some sort of court order to do so!).
    This can be done whenever your Phone is operating (whether or not you actually talk in it), and was used several times in order to locate and capture criminals (and even a lost solider, recently), but can be easily be misused in malicious ways and is a serious danger to the Right for Privacy of all customers.
  • Hey cool... Then no-one will be able to reach me on my cell phone.. Kinda defeats the purpose of having a cell phone, don't you think?
  • The NSA is at least 10 years ahead of anything we know about. We get to play with their table scraps.
  • I'm sorry, but why is that? I can't see what's wrong with keeping my default score of 2.

    If there is actually a good reason for doing this, I'd be happy to do so.
  • As of October 1st, 2001, all cellular systems will have extremely accurate location finder systems in response to the FCC's Phase II of Enhanced 911 service. When you dial 911 they'll be able to pinpoint your location immediately (within, I think, 150m) either by base technology or, as I read somewhere (and of course cannot find) from GPS in the phones.

    Michael J.
  • They're a zoned out, unaware menace on the road. Many states, counties, and cities have banned the use of cell phones by the driver of a vehicle

    Not entirely true. Some cities have banned the use of cellphones in moving cars (San Francisco area rings a bell to me, for at least one) but IIRC there have been no bans at the state level yet. Colorado has such a bill before the legislature, but I give its odds as being 50-50 at most.

  • People do in fact get pulled over for not wearing their seatbelt - or rather, that is a convenient excuse for the stop

    That varies from state to state. In Colorado, for example, a stop may only be made for what's called a 'primary' violation. Adult seat-belt violations are not primaries, meaning that they can only be ticketed if the officer stops the car for some other reason and observes the violation.

    OTOH, I believe that child seat belt violations are primaries here. FWIW, I'm given to understand that most of the 50 states are similar to ours.

  • >As far as I know, cell phone comms are encrypted

    >Not really, some PCS/GSM/other digital phones are encrypted, but cellular is no more secure than a CB radio. That's why new(er)scanners have the cellular channels locked out.

    Not very well locked out. The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (1989? 1991?) forbade the sale of new scanners capable of intercepting cell frequencies, except to government agencies. However, there are workarounds. Many scanners are designed for police convenience, such that they can be easily modified to remove the cell blocking.

    That was a bone thrown to the cell companies. It saved them from having to spend money to go to the (relatively secure) digital, so they could stay analog for a few years longer.

  • They're watching you, you know.

    But I listen to them on the way to work too.

    Ha!
    Ha ha ha!
    Ha hahaha ha ha!
  • Wouldn't it just be better to track the cars themselves moving? Is it really so much more difficult to mount a few radar systems up at strategic places to detect the speed of traffic? For that matter, why can't the satellites track traffic? Hell, supposedly the government can pinpoint a individual walking with one of them, so why not do something actually useful with them? Heck, why not put those "black" helicopters to use to? I know their there, keeping an eye on us, so why not product some helpful data while they are spying anyway?

    Besides, all the dicks with the cell phones are the ones driving their bmw's and mercedes' shitty, driving off on the side of the road illegally and thus don't represent actually traffic anyway.

  • Let's say 25% of the drivers have cell phones (and use them). My point is that these 25% are not just roll-the-die-random one in four. They are people who share certain traits in common. People who may mostly live in one area or another. It's not just who is using the phones but also when they are using them. If it's mostly commuters using phones while going back and forth to work, you are going to get statistics about people driving back and forth to work who use their phones at those times. I don't really see how you could get a good overall picture of what is going on across the board.
  • I developed the software that kept track of the calls and scheduled the direction finding activities on that project, so I guess I can tell you a few things about it.

    The 1994 pilot was an analog-only system that used an array of eight antennas feeding eight digital receivers, which in turn fed a whole load of DSP hardware. Once the receiver was tuned, the DSP would do a load of math on the incoming signals and use the phase differences to determine where they were coming from. There were also algorithms to weed out multipath, leaving a single, strong signal to be used in taking a bearing. The goal of the first test was to keep an eye on the DC Beltway from I-270 to Alexandria. To do this, we co-located the DF equipment at eight cell sites around the Beltway. The MTSO (mobile telephone switching office) would give us a feed of calls entering and leaving the cells we covered (each DF site could cover many cells, and some overlapped). Three or four sites were scheduled to get a bearing on the call, and if the phone was located in our area of interest, it was tracked periodically until it left. The resulting location, direction and speed information was then fed back to a Traffic Information Center where a map of the Beltway displayed relative speeds for each segment.

    Nothing was actually done with information about the phone itself, but there was a great deal of interest in using a similar system for enhanced 911 services. The project was eventually sold off to Grayson Wireless [grayson.com], who turned it into this product [allentele.com]. There's a description of how it works here [allentele.com]. It's kind of cool to see that a lot of the concepts we built into the prototype seven years ago are still around.

  • A small number of samples is enough to estimate the traffic state using their doppler shift. For example, if there is even one cellphone at 60MPH out of hundreds of vehicles on a given section of road it is very unlikely that traffic is jammed. While it is possible that some vehicles will drive much slower than others if you get just two or three 8MPH doppler signatures and no higher ones you probably have slow traffic.


    ----

  • Re:Not really (Score:5)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Sunday January 23, 2000 @05:22AM (#1346009) Homepage Journal
    If I had moderator points, I'd just moderate up the other replies. Since I don't...


    First, the article described 2 systems: One used GPS (and that is the section you quote), and the other used passive reception of the signal. There is no way to turn off the passive system without turning off the phone (not such a bad idea: drive now, talk later). Now, as part of a standard AMPS cell call, the mobile sends out its MIN (mobile identification number). That's the phone number to you and me. It is the actual telephone #, not just a serial #. So, with a commonly available reverse phone book (i.e. a phone book sorted on numbers, not names) you can look up the number and get a name. You can also look up the person you want to track's name, get the phone number (with a regular phone book), and track that person as long as they talk.


    What people find so scary about this sort of thing is the fact that it can be abused. And if history is any guide, what can be abused shall be abused. Here in the States we have had various forms of electronic monitoring added to our computer networks, telephone switches, etc. to make it easier (read: trivial) for the various agencies of the various government levels to spy on citizens. If you do not think that the FBI will go to the makers of the passive system and say "You will put in code to allow us to track individual callers.", then you do not know our law enforcement agencies very well.

  • Yeah, you get there faster. But at what cost? YOU may think you can drive like Mario Andretti, but I bet you wouldn't know how to handle your car in a speed induced emergency. Then hopefully you will only splatter yourself all over the highway. Most likely though, you will kill some innocent party in another vehicle. Speed limits, and for that matter the men in blue who monitor us are there to protect those of us who are abiding by the law. If you think speed is where it's at, go to a race track and keep your dangerous self away from the highways.
  • I think you're missing the point here. I presume this technology is not measuring the density of cellphones ('there are a large number of cellphones here, so there must be a lot of cars'), but the speed of a small sample of cellphones. Assuming you can estimate how a bunch of cellphones are moving you can generalise about the speed of the traffic. Fewer cellphones will, of course, mean less reliable data -- that just means you get two results from the maths: the estimated speed of the traffic and the reliability of that estimate.
  • If you don't want to be tracked, switch off the phone, that way they can only track the clueless.
  • Copters will alwasy be used for 'on the scene' reporting, but systems like permenant traffic monitoring systems, and these proposed cell systems, will be used to monitor the areas to know where to send traffic copters. They can't be everywhere at once, so they need some sort of system to alert them to problems.

  • Um, no.

    From my read of the GSM spec (a friend bought me the huge expensave book for Christmas one year...) the update timer is way shorter then hours.

    More importantly from putting my 1900Mhz-GSMish phone near my computer speakers I heard transmit bursts from it multiple times an hour. Also just after it was turned off (as in I press off, the backlight turns on, it says "powering down", screen goes blank and THEN "blip-blip-blip").

    Beats me how ofen CDMA phones transmit (I know they do handset assisted cell handoff, so they will transmit quite a bit when they are close to a cell boundry). I havn't read the spec, and I havn't noticed any interference from the phone yet (I switched when the provider in my areaa ditched GSM@1900Mhz to go with CDMA@1900Mhz, which has been providing me with fewer services, but doing them just as well, for moer money, what a bargin!)

  • uuh. just switch it off or remove the battery..its not an EMP device..its a friggin cell phone for gods sake.

  • Illegalization (Score:3)

    by DanJose52 ( 55815 ) on Saturday January 22, 2000 @09:09PM (#1346021)
    With the recent illegalization of cell phone use on the road, this technology may prove to be totally worthless, save for the few that want to be ticketed.

    Dan
  • So does this mean that my daily traffic 'copter I listen to on the way to work will become obsolete?

    How entirely accurate could this be? This based on the errant assumption that all the traffic on the highways consists of yuppie puppies yacking away while driving (which is illegal in many urban areas--cell phoning while driving...not yuppies)...

    Why not just stick with the good ole' traffic copters?

    --snake

  • Use the cell phone density to monitor how many people are at different parts of an intersection to control the street lights...

    No more sitting at a red light watching noone go through.

    ~Chris

  • accident prediction (Score:4)

    by acarlisle ( 96757 ) on Saturday January 22, 2000 @09:17PM (#1346028)
    I want to be the guy in the control booth who sees the two 95 mph dots heading towards each other, see them meet, see the dots dissappear, and see them appear again at 0 mph as each calls his/her lawyer.

    Conventional wisdom states that cell-phone users get into more accidents and have less control over their speed; I wonder how this will affect the data.

    -AC
  • That's correct, I used to install them, they detect the metal of the car. They use the same technology as a metal detector in an airport, only they are sawed into the ashphalt.
  • This idea seems to be not thought out all that well, not everyone has a cell phone, not even close in fact. Any results from this would have to be checked by other sources anyways so why not just use that source instead?
  • hey can we ban beautiful women too? i never pay attention to where i'm driving when i see a hottie in the car next to me.
  • Should work as long as your phone is on, not if you're talking on it...at least that's what i gathered :)


  • Using the drivers themselves is a lot cheaper: no helicopter maintence, pilots, insurance, etc. And it works well in bad weather (though if you're blabbering away on a cell phone during a snowstorm, maybe you shouldn't be driving). It is also more accurate: why not get traffic data from the people on the road? It makes sense.

    Of course, it all depends on enough cell phone usage. If no one's talking, there won't be any info.

    As far as yuppies are concerned, we could track them with radio collars to learn their ancient migration patterns to the local Starbucks.

    ~~~~~~~~~
    auntfloyd
  • Does this work only if the phone is in use, or can it work from just the phone being on but not in use? I don't see this being overly accurate if it only works with the phone in use to get the measusement. But by what I understand, digital phones communicate with the network at regular intervals to prepair for a jump onto another antenna and such. Could be wrong here though, never completly looked into how they work.
  • I used to work for Cellnet, and when the police wanted to ID one of our users. They rang us up and requested our fax number, faxed us though a form which suspended the Data Protection Act (meaning we could give out otherwise protected information about our clients). We then rang up the policeperson concerned and told them the information. Usually it was information regarding the persons address, say a 999 call had been made but not completed. Presumably if it is more general information, say "This house is that of a known drug dealer, we want all the numbers, names and addresses of all the people who go there". There is a special department who deals with this. But imagine the room for mistakes, say someone lives in the upstairs flat?, or someone goes round to read the gas meter?

    Anyway just a few thoughts

    Alex
  • They're working on making it illegal here in Alberta. Can't recall if it's passed, and not yet in effect, or if it's not yet passed...

    It's fine by me. The fewer things preventing the a$$hole going 20Km/h _below_ the speed limit in the fast lane (which, as we all know, is for going 20Km/h _over_ the limit) from realizing that he's holding up traffic, the better...
  • The law enforcement view seems to be that anything that does not involve listening to the conversation can be done without a search warrant. A pen register can be installed with a court order based upon suspicion of criminal activity (18 USC 3121) .
  • The systems you mention may work very well but they have tremendous costs. I suggest you try calculating the cost of a weatherproof monitoring unit, communication and power infrastructure and of course the labour costs. Don't forget to multiply that by hundreds of units and add in the maintenance costs.

    Now consider the alternative offered by RadioCamera:
    a relatively small number of units cover a large ares. Furthermore, they are installed in existing cell sites that have all the necessary infrastructure. These systems can easily be afforded by places that are not as well off as California.

    I would expect that slashdot readers should know by now that silicon is cheaper than infrastructure.

    ----
  • ...we have road cameras by the side of the road on certain bits of motorway - They scan number plates and use the information to check whether you speed by averaging your speed between individual checkpoints. A lot more accurate than traditional radar-guns (and thus radar-guns become useless).

    Point is that if you work out how much data is stored (assuming that they don't bother with keeping photographs of the cars unless they have been speeding) then there is very little and they could easily keep records of where all cars travelling over a reasonable period in a certain region go.

    ---------
    To hell with you, I never liked you, you are no friend of mine...

  • no. with land line 911 you can call from a payphone and run for it..or drive away from it. typical response is > 1 minute and that translates to 1 mile+ for you to escape. with this you can be tracked *all* the time. IMHO, this sucks. if i see a fire at the side of the road and i want to dial 911 anonymously on my cellphone (to prevent the hassle of getting involved with cops etc) this will definitely cause me to pause and think about dialling..who wants to get involved needlessly anyway ?
  • Actually before MnDot ended serving their page and let the StarTribune do it. MNDot had a great java script map that you could click mouse over any 1/2 mile strip and get the speed in 5mph increments. Also since this was originally put in the roads to help with metering onramp lights. You could also click on any one of the ramps and it would tell you the wait time on the ramp. One other plus on the map you could see where all the cameras were and click to view them, then you could do your own traffic reports.

    But those days are gone, due to extra bandwidth, and now there is only the simpler StarTribune's map.
  • Before this technology becomes mainstream, I think we should open the topic up to public discussion. Discussing it here is the first step. Do we want this technology to actually become part of our lives? Do we want people to know exactly where we are, when we have our mobile on?

    Obviously there could be benefits. Using it for law enforcement and searching for missing people to name two. But that may be as far as it can go, without upsetting people. However, in my opinion, there would have to be strict laws to govern this technology. As we've seen with other technologies in the past, if put into the wrong hands it can be misused and abused.

    I believe the topic needs to be extensively debated, both publically and in government circles, before it can become a tool we can all use.
  • But that cost is already there if your city uses metered ramps as in MN, then it is just free info from there on.
  • Dude, Andretti is a weenie. We drive like Juan Manuel Fangio. Get it right. ;)

    itachi
  • Okay, so the more cell phones available out there, the better this works, right? How about having the state DoT give cell phones to all licensed drivers? That way everyone has one, and the monitoring system works really well. Of course, it would be reporting many more traffic jams than currently occur, due to all the extra people actually using those cell phones.

    Edward Burr
  • You said:

    ((lambda (x z) (format "~a~a")) "lisp" "d00d")

    And how, pray tell, will the format form obtain its parameters? That's right. It won't, because you haven't bothered to actually pass them to format. As long as you're showing off your Lisp wizardliness, you probably want to use a closure instead, as in the much more idiomatic:


    (let* ((x "lisp")
    (z "d00d")
    (pr (lambda () (begin (display x) (display z) (new-line)))))
    (pr))
  • By October 2001, these companies must be able to tell public-safety officials the approximate location of mobile-phone users who dial 911

    For the non-US crowd out there, 911 is a phone number you can dial to get emergency help. It's normally used for medical, fire, and crime related problems.

    I can see the use for this technology (it's pretty obvious). I thought it was great when 911 got the ability to know where the caller was without relying on a panic stricken victim or victim's friend to give directions.

    However, it's just kind of creepy to know that I can be tracked so easily. Okay, right now it doesn't invade privacy but how long will that last?
  • Well true, the person in the control center can't tell who it is, but for example, they can tell who is speeding. With that information, they can tell a squad car in the area about the heading of the speeder and presto! some guy got a speeding ticket. This has been used before with bridges and helicopters, and this new technology will make it easier/cheaper to grab speeders. Whether this is good or bad, it's not for me to decide, but I defienetly seems to cut down on my freedom.
  • So you're freedom to break the law should be protected? ok..... You bring upon yourself if you speed. Hell, I'd be happy if there was more tickets for people going 80 in a 65 zone.

  • Well lets get carried away instead... (Score:3)

    by cdlu ( 65838 ) on Saturday January 22, 2000 @09:30PM (#1346068) Homepage
    Why not pass legislation that forces all vehicles to report their velocity and direction every n ticks of an onboard clock to a control tower? Then noone would know who what when where or why....well maybe where who when what but not why...

    For privacy: any car entering an area is assigned a call sign, and when it exits that broadcast area its ID is handed-off to a new car coming in... *shrug* would make more sense then cell phones.
    #include <signal.h> \ #include <stdlib.h> \ int main(void){signal(ABRT,SIGIGN);while(1){abort(-1); }return(0);}
  • It doesn't take a mario andretti to drive at 80 on a perfectly straight empty four lane highway.
  • Why? Look at all the potential for good it has. Finding traffic jams before anyone even calls in. Locating someone who calls 911. This technology could improve our roads, even perhaps save lives.

    But along with that comes the potential for abuse. And that abuse will happen, given enough time. Or at least, someone will certainly try to abuse it.

    Right now, though, tracking people via cellphone isn't very practical. Each phone has a fingerprint, but you have to map fingerprints to individuals before you can track specific people, and I don't believe anyone has records of that sort (perhaps the phone company, but I'm not sure if they do). Without those records, you need to find the cellphone itself, which means finding the user, which renders the whole tracking pointless because you've already found the target.

    Now, if our pals in the government were to require cellphone registration with the Feds, that's another matter entirely. I wonder when someone's going to try and get that bill passed...
  • I was under the impression that cell phones always send out signals in order to keep in contact with/find the nearest tower. So doesn't that mean that people don't even have to be talking for this to work? Could someone clarify this for me please.

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