Yahoo News Drivers' mobile phone data to help beat traffic jams
Mobile phone data will be monitored to ease traffic congestion as part of a major trial.
York City Council will use drivers' and passengers' phone signals to track how cars move around the city in an effort to ease traffic jams in the historic city.
The new system will collect signals via the internet or using sensors on the roadside, and if successful could be rolled out across the country.
The council said the detectors would be fitted to lights, bollards, and other street furniture and would detect and process anonymous "signatures" from people using mobile phone services.
The data used will be harvested by beacons which collect data called a "MAC address" from passing phones, a unique code each device broadcasts as it searches for WiFi networks or Bluetooth devices. The only way to opt out of the scheme would be to turn off WiFi and Bluetooth. The code for each car would change every day.
We can’t simply build more roads in the city, so this is a really innovative way to get the city moving as efficiently as possible
In the future the council may also buy anonymised data from mobile phone companies.
Data will also be collected from satellite navigation systems and eventually will also track "connected cars" which have their own WiFi systems and provide drivers with information about traffic and provide parking assistance.
The system will also include data about weather patterns and allow officers to change traffic light sequences based on the weather - for example, if there is a sudden downpour, with the eventual aim of making the changes automatic.
A grant worth £450,000 from the Department of Transport, launched this month, will fund a pilot scheme on one road, the A59 entering York, which will eventually expand across the city, funded by £2.85m from a Government fund.
The council said the plans would make York "one of the most advanced cities in the country".
"Being able to build things like traffic light signalling based on the journeys people really make every day will mean better decisions, less congestion and improved air quality.
“We can’t simply build more roads in the city, so this is a really innovative way to get the city moving as efficiently as possible," Ian Gillies, leader of York City Council, said.
The council also said the scheme was made possible by the city's ultrafast fibre broadband.
Data will also be fed into schemes for redesigning junctions and improving roads.
The data "will be stored in a secure cloud subject to UK government security principles," the council said, and the systems "fully comply with data protection regulations".
Councillor Peter Dew, City of York Council’s executive member for transport, said: "Our famous historic city hasn’t got the space for more road, so we have to use technology as much as tarmac to get our network fit for the whole of the 21st century.
"What happens on York’s roads over the next couple of years will help to define how traffic is managed in the UK. This is a genuinely pioneering approach to making our roads safer and air cleaner, made possible by York’s digital infrastructure."
The default system in the UK is for traffic lights to be responsive, meaning that they monitor traffic flow and adjust timings accordingly.
Last month bus company First Group announced that it would roll out new technology allowing buses to communicate with smart traffic lights, keeping them green for longer if a bus was running late.
A DfT spokesman said: "We are always looking at ways to use technology to revolutionise the way we travel. That’s why we invested £3m in this innovative scheme in York, which will help us to explore how vehicle technology can be used to improve road networks for drivers.
"As with all our funded projects, we will monitor the results of this trial and remain committed to supporting future investments in ground-breaking technology."
