Traffic Reports From Your Cell Phone

Reported March 2006

BALTIMORE (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- Frustrated and stuck in a traffic tie-up? Now, your cell phone might be able to get you out of it. Commuters trapped in traffic might find relief on the phone with a new technology that's helping unlock highway gridlock.

We sit, we wait, we inch along ... And with time to kill and no where to go, it's no wonder many drivers turn to a cell phone for relief.

Now, civil engineers are putting all that talk time to good use with new technology that monitors jammed-up roads by tracking cell phone signals.

Mike Zezeski, a civil engineer at the Maryland State Highway Administration in Baltimore, says, "We are pretty much taking data from the cellular provider and converting it to travel time."

The new system works whether you're talking on your cell phone or not, the phone only needs to be turned on. The technology follows the movement of cell phone signals from one cell tower to another. When this information is displayed on a map, it shows how quickly or slowly traffic is moving.

"When you start to see oranges and yellow, that means traffic's starting to slow up," Zezeski says. "The technology will provide the motorists with really good travel information, much better than what they have today."

The more accurate and reliable mapping system is a faster way to warn drivers of traffic accidents and give alternate routes before drivers are stuck in a sea of brake lights.

This new traffic system cannot monitor your conversations only your cell signal. So far, Maryland, Virginia, Missouri and Georgia have already started testing the new system on roadways.

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