Harvesting traffic information through GSM’s

TomTom and Vodaphone want to use mobile phone signals sent from traffic jams to gather real-time travel information. The data will be used for TomTom users to establish if roads are congested, if and by how much the trip will be delayed, and if alternative routes can be suggested. Mobile phones continuously beam signals to their nearest base stations, which gives the network provider the approximate location of the phone.

Mobile phone penetration is more than 100 percent in the Netherlands, meaning that every person carries one or more mobile phones. The service will be available in the Netherlands in the second half of 2007, using the Dutch Vodafone network. I wonder how they deal with carpooling? Read more at PCPro news.