Google have revealed plans for harnessing the growing population of smartphone users, in a bid to end traffic jams. Currently testing the scheme in the US, the application needs only to be turned on by the user, with Google doing the rest.
Announcing that the newest plan would form part of their Google Maps product, users of the scheme simply use their mobile phone to access My Location before starting their journey. Google then automatically collects data of an individual’s journey, collating it with thousands and possibly millions of other’s data to build up an image map of traffic streams. Estimating vehicle speeds Google can then advise users where traffic is beginning to gather, finding alternative routes, and therefore lessening traffic jams in the process.
However, whilst Google have confirmed that mobiles such as the Palm Pre and HTC Magic will work with the Google Maps update, they have acknowledged that the product does not work in conjunction with Apple’s iPhone.
Making a statement on their official blog Google said “Ever since GPS location started coming to mainstream devices, people have been thinking of ways to use it to figure out how fast the traffic is moving. But for us to really make it work, we had to solve problems of scale and privacy.” They added that individual’s car journey data would be instantly deleted and that the service was an opt-in programme only.
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