Speed Data-ing: You’re Broadcasting Traffic Reports without Even Knowing It

As navigation systems transition from showing us where to go to telling us what traffic looks like along the way, better real-time information can be a big selling point. Traffic-info providers synthesize information from a number of disparate sources, but traffic choppers are expensive relics of the Ron Burgundy era and sensors embedded in roadways are fragile and often unreliable. The key to perfecting real-time traffic information may soon (if not already) be you.

Nearly all cell phones sold today are equipped with Bluetooth. Several years ago, researchers at the University of Maryland hatched a plan to replace expensive roadside radar installations and other observation methods with Bluetooth tracking. Cheaper than the ­traditional solutions, Bluetooth field detectors catalog media access control (MAC) addresses, or the electronic IDs of the passing mobile devices. A central processor calculates the speed of traffic over a given stretch of road based on each device’s travel time between detection points. Those worried that the cops will spot their feloniously brief transit from points A to B and mail them a speeding ticket should note that nobody knows your device’s MAC address. No database of them exists, and many traffic-info systems in use today encrypt individual addresses as soon as they’re logged. Still worried your Droid will be appropriated by The Man for traffic logging? Write your congressional representatives, or, easier yet, turn off your phone’s Bluetooth. Or follow our advice for dodging traffic: Take a scenic back road.

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Elegant as the Bluetooth solution may be, it still requires a network of field detectors strung along every corridor data suppliers wish to track. As an alternative, traffic-data companies are increasingly gathering info on vehicle position and speed from drivers’ own nav systems, whether they are installed by the carmaker, purchased at a store, or running as an app on a smartphone. This two-way conversation turns any driver who participates in the feedback loop into a sort of scout. Whether you’re poking at your screen to report construction backups, speed traps, or accidents, apps such as Traffic! (free from traffic-data house Inrix) feed data back to the mother ship for packaging and sale—possibly to the car right behind you.

we’re all wusses now
Less-Mean Streets

We tend to think of roadways as the exclusive domain of cars. The National Complete Streets Coalition, an advocacy group, seeks to change that by broadening traffic planning for non-motorized users, including children, the elderly, and the disabled. It prescribes the smart integration of features such as crosswalks, medians, and dedicated bicycle and bus lanes.

Planners are keen, for instance, to bring back medians and wider verges, those spaces between the curbs and sidewalks. Medians make wide streets easier for pedestrians to cross; verges afford a greater measure of safety. Communities in 27 states and D.C. already have fallen in step with the philosophy. Of course, any effort that can be read as a plot to coax people out of cars usually sends enthusiasts racing for their tinfoil hats—even as others change nothing about their daily routines.

Complete Streets deputy director Stefanie Seskin says: “There is little disagreement that cars are going to be the primary mode of transportation for most people. We’re just giving people more options.” So think of Complete Streets as a best-practices guide for planners.

Regardless of intent, we’re still wary of build-it-and-they-will-come planning that reduces the space available for cars in favor of alternatives for which there may be little demand. While we’re not reaching for our Reynolds-reinforced tam-o’-shanters yet, we do have them at the ready.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/caranddriver/blog/~3/VpQcQGSc4CI/

Randy Joseph Lajoie Kevin Paul Lepage William Ashton Lewis Jr Sterling Burton Marlin Mark Anthony Martin