Global ‘Intelligent Transport’ Initiative Comes To Your Cellphone

Global ‘Intelligent Transport’ initiative comes to your cellphone: Location data used to track traffic flow

In line with an emerging global mandate for ‘Intelligent Traffic Systems’ or ITS, Transport Canada has awarded the contract to develop this technology to startup Globis Data and its partner MIxpertS Inc. As explained on the Transport Canada Website, “All cell phones currently sold by Bell Mobility have a built-in Global Positioning System (GPS) chipset that can, when augmented by the Bell Mobility network, determine their position to a relatively high degree of accuracy.” Based on a P3 agreement with Transport Canada, ITS Canada, the local chapter of a global network of ITS associations tied in with government and academia, is driving these initiatives along with partners in the EU and the US Department of Transport including NASCO, the CANAMEX trade corridor, and other associations enabling electronic tracking along controversial multi-modal trans-continental trade routes. So, far from being a discrete project to help motorists ‘escape traffic jams’, these initiatives are actually the building blocks of far-reaching changes being made to global transportation infrastructure. And does anyone recall giving Bell Mobility permission to use their GPS data to enable this?
 

CBC News
September 2, 2008

Relief could be down the road for motorists looking to escape traffic jams in Ottawa thanks to new technology being tested in Ontario.

Ottawa-based Globis Data has created a system that tracks drivers’ cellphone movement with GPS technology to generate information used to create real-time traffic maps.

The maps would be available online or on drivers’ cellphones.

“Our server pings the cellphone, and determines your location,” explained Barrie Kirk, an engineer and Globis Data president. “If we know where you are now, and where you were three or four minutes ago, we can work out how far you’ve travelled in that time.”

The technology holds promise, said Ata Khan, a civil engineering professor at Carleton University.

Traditional methods of measuring traffic rely on buried cables and transmitters are costly because “it is very expensive to instrument an entire network,” he said. “This is an inexpensive way, because there is not much infrastructure that is needed.”

Drivers’ privacy would be protected, because the system doesn’t save any information, but holds it for a few minutes before it is discarded, Kirk said.

The system is already running in Toronto, and a demonstration test is being planned in Ottawa this fall, he said.

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