From Google Maps to Mesh Networks: How Mobile Will Stop Traffic
This week, Google announced that they will be crowdsourcing traffic conditions using Google Maps for mobile. This is one of several new ways the search giant is harnessing the data they collect to improve products and services. It’s also a first step towards a mesh network that will connect our cars in a constant digital dialogue.
It's all starting by getting drivers up to speed on data-sharing and what it means for the collective, as well as the individual. “Crowdsourcing traffic gives us a way to harness bits of location data from our users and give it back to them in a form they can use to make impactful decisions that affect their free time, their pocketbooks and the environment,” says the Official Google Blog.
“When you choose to enable Google Maps with My Location, your phone sends anonymous bits of data back to Google describing how fast you're moving. When we combine your speed with the speed of other phones on the road, across thousands of phones moving around a city at any given time, we can get a pretty good picture of live traffic conditions. We continuously combine this data and send it back to you for free in the Google Maps traffic layers.”
What does this mean for drivers? They can tell everybody in their city when they are stuck in traffic. They can warn other drivers about accidents ahead. They can tell the government that a traffic light is slow or a pothole needs fixing.
In order to make this work, Google had to solve problems of scale and privacy. They are achieving scale by making it dead simple to use and contribute. There's no extra device to plug into your car and no extra software to buy. Google Maps is free and works with most cell phones, and the number of cell phones with GPS is rising every day. They built privacy protections in from the start, anonymizing speed and location information and deleting start and end points of someone’s trip. They also combine data to make it hard to tell one phone from another.
In the not so distant future, this process will all be automatic. Auto and tech companies have been working on enabling our cars to do the talking, rather than drivers with cell phones. DaimlerChrysler’s WILLWARN project, developed with Car2Car Communication Consortium, created a radio network that let cars communicate. By installing WLAN routers in cars, they could share information on temperature, road conditions, fog, or road obstructions within a 500 meter radius. Successful test have been complete and they are working on integration with GPS and mapping systems to help cars find other routes.
The next step is a mobile mesh network, which further streamlines this inter-car communication. In a recent article on her in Wired, pioneer Robin Chase explains mesh networking well:
“Wi-Fi is like a bridge that connects the highways on either side of the stream,” she says. “You build it wide enough to handle the maximum traffic you expect. If too much comes, it gets congested. When not enough arrives, you’ve got excess capacity. Mesh takes a different approach: Each person who wants to cross throws in a flat rock that’s above the water line. The more people who do that, the more ways there are to get across the river.”
Right now, cars have cell networks and WiFi built in (think about OnStar support services). Mesh networking would combine these singular nodes, to replace these systems with an open, Internet-based platform. Add a mesh network and a cloud will form, linking vehicles that can connect with one another and with the rest of the network.
While the auto industry flails, Google’s people-powered crowdsourcing efforts present a tangible step towards this grander goal. It also provides an incremental level of consumer education – people understand how Google Maps work, then grasp how amassed data can improve their own driving experiences. Next, in simplistic terms, the cellphone is embedded in the car, so they don’t need to do anything. Then an even better technology comes along to make this all more efficient. It’s just like entering your zip code manually into a mobile service has given way to auto-detection via location APIs. Now my phone knows where I am, I don’t need to tell it. Simple.
It will be interesting to see how fast the auto industry is able to implement network technologies. In the meantime, Google Maps for mobile will be our training wheels.
