41pshot of a mobile nation
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e whereabouts and speed of your truck could soon become a valuable and irketable commodity, if companies like ITIS have their way. The firm plans to use s information to generate traffic reports, congestion alerts and even a full dynamic ite planning service. Does this mean the end of the traffic jam as we know it?
!Toby Clark
trading as NavTrak, offers a ne-based traffic alert and ie-finding system called Sc Watch. It has also teamed vith Toyota to offer an ADS: (Radio Data System-Traffic ;sage Channel) service
▪ is linked to a car's satellite gation unit. Both systems on traffic data from two ;gories: "journalistic" data vehicle data. The first type ies from traffic agencies, on forces and road contrac;, and mainly comprises the 3dictable" factors that se 75% of congestion.
Vehicle data is concerned 1 the actual flow of traffic, includes data from magic loops or static cameras the Trafficmaster system) ch measure the number of vehicles moving past a fixed point; more sophisticated camera systems now look at number plates to see how long it takes a particular vehicle to travel between two points. But these systems become unreliable when traffic is stationary or very slow.
ITIS now puts the emphasis on "floating vehicle data" (FVD)—position and speed information obtained directly from a so-called "probe" vehicle, using satellite positioning (GPS) and a communication system such as the GSM mobile phone network.
The combination is known as a DCU (Data Collection Unit), and ITIS has been using equipment supplied by Minorplanet. The claimed advantages of FVD are: • The system is universal and scalable (it fits any car or CV and can be used anywhere);
• The system indicates position and speed, which can be monitored continuously or recorded for later analysis;
• The hardware is relatively cheap, and vehicle manufacturers are increasingly fitting the equipment as standard.
The idea is not new—FVD was proposed over 10 years ago—but the earliest studies concentrated on cars, and suggested that 1-5% of the total parc would need to be used as probe vehicles to obtain useful results. That would mean using up to 1.3 million cars to keep track of traffic in the UK. Dr Gary Gates of ITIS reckons that 660,000 cars are needed to assess conditions on Britain's motorways and trunk roads.
However, Gates points out that traffic levels vary widely between different areas (Junctions 9 and 10 of the M6 typically handle 26 times the traffic of the M45) and at different times. So it makes sense to concentrate on the vehicles which populate the busiest roads and times.
ITIS has devised an "FVD factor" to assess the usefulness of a probe vehicle, calculated from the following variables: • Total mileage driven; • Proportion of mileage driven on the 'strategic" road network (the busiest roads and bottlenecks);
11 Proportion of time spent driving in peak hours.
If a typical private car user has an FVD factor of 1, a business driver (a sales rep, for instance) might have a factor of 3. But a high-mileage truck or coach is likely to have an FVD factor of 30—it's 30 times as useful as a car in assessing traf fic conditions. So only 22,000 CVs would be needed for a useful picture of Britain's roads.
ITIS/NavTrak has started its campaign of recruiting CV operators by signing a deal with National Express: the firm's 530 coaches cover around 100 million kilometres a year, and can deliver as much useful traffic data as 16,000 average cars. In return, NavTrak is predicting arrival times for each coach.
Now NavTrak is hoping to add truck fleets to its system— particularly those doing more than 150,000km per vehicle per year. Though it has none on the books yet, the firm expects to have recruited almost 4,000 trucks by the end of 2001.
But NavTrak is not the only company looking to use valuable floating vehicle data; fleet management firms such as Isotrak have also mentioned the idea. So could we soon see a battle for your vehicle's location?
• Contact NavTrak/IT1S on 08700 110050 or at www.NavTrak.com.