Sharing my traffic data
I happen to love it when I am stuck in traffic and I can see just how long I will be stuck by looking at Google Maps on my iPhone. Therefore I am more that willing to share my data back with the rest of you who may also be stuck. Google is now offering arterial traffic data. http://tinyurl.com/mhz7nk
The trick is, the data is coming from you and I and all the others who are using the mobile Google maps service. As we travel, we are sending our speed and location back to Google and that is being used in aggregate to map traffic patterns.
Now some people may not like this data capturing device, and they can opt out of the feature. But Google has privacy features that make me, and many others, feel safe in sharing our data. For example, vehicles are anonymous and start and end points are deleted so even anonymous vehicles can’t be tracked. I hope Google’s privacy efforts make enough of us feel secure so that there is sufficient data to make the service effective. Then we all will be sitting in traffic less often.