iTECH: Putting the ‘Gee!’ in GPS

By Susan L. Hodges, Contributing Writer

This story appears in the June/July issue of iTECH, published in the June 9 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

Can congestion-suffering truckers find relief via wireless communications? Dynamic traffic reporting — and eventually predictive analysis that forecasts when and where those soul-draining backups and bottlenecks will pop up — could be just what the doctor ordered. Cellular-based navigation units and in-cab linkups are available to any professional driver or consumer determined to find the road less traveled, and suppliers are working to expand system usefulness.

But for the serious user, there are practical limits to what these systems can serve up — one of which is the value of alternative routing.

Real-time navigation earned the spotlight recently when a segment of I-95 near Philadelphia was closed suddenly because of a deteriorating bridge support. Maptuit, which makes the Navi-Go commercial navigation system, received a call from a customer who reported the closure right after it happened. A company official then called the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation to confirm the closure.

“Within minutes of receiving the information, we were able to load it onto our servers,” said Navi-Go spokesman Kevin LaBrie. The servers sent the information to customers in the form on-screen messages and revised routing suggestions.

Alain Kornhauser, president of ALK Technologies and a professor at Princeton University, said delivery of this kind of navigation information wouldn’t be possible without the continuing development of mobile phones, many of which contain chips that provide the processing power of small computers. These devices are referred to as smartphones, “and they’ve gotten substantially better, easier to use and cheaper,” Kornhauser said. Most significantly, he added, “GPS receivers have been put on them, and these devices are of high quality.”

The marriage of location-tracking and cellular communication seems like a natural. Not long after Sept. 11, 2001, the Federal Communications Commission passed a regulation requiring that all cell phones to have the capability of making quick emergency calls in the same manner as the 911 mode for land lines. The order went out to embed GPS chips in cell phones after early 2005 so that they could send Enhanced 911 signals, the cellular version of the universal emergency number. Law enforcement and emergency-response personnel can track the signal.

AirSage, an Atlanta company, accesses GPS signals through Sprint Nextel and analyzes them to provide navigation services. Here’s how its system works:

A mobile phone constantly sends a signal to at least one cell tower, and possibly as many as three. Data from the towers are sent to a Sprint Nextel “switch,” or processor, which acts as a central brain, coordinating data between towers. AirSage said its proprietary software removes all user-identifying factors.

After AirSage charts a vehicle’s progress along a road at different points in time, algorithms calculate the vehicle’s travel speed. Combining location and speed of many vehicles, the AirSage computers “see” where congestion is developing. Over time, the system collects enough data about traffic patterns to be able to “predict” when and where future congestion is likely to occur. Inrix, a provider of traffic information founded in Kirkland, Wash., by two former Microsoft executives, collects traffic data from embedded highway sensors, construction activity reports and state highway department monitors in addition to thousands of cell phone-equipped customers, including truck and taxi fleets.

In a computing process similar to AirSage’s, the Inrix “traffic fusion engine” produces real-time and predictive reports.

“We might have 100 different positions on one road, and we blend it into a single speed value,” said Ryan Glancy, a spokesman for Inrix’s fleet management channel.

Speed values form the basis for predictive modeling, enabling Inrix to identify traffic tie-ups that may form an hour down the road.

“The duration of routes for longhaul trucking is so long that real-time data [are] only applicable for the first 45 minutes,” Glancy said. “That’s why drivers need to be looking at the predictive piece.”

Future applications are supposed to make it possible for Inrix to suggest departure times and estimated arrival times and to determine in more detail alternate routes, feasible entrances and exits and the time to be saved by using them.

Inrix currently collects real-time data in 112 metropolitan areas and plans to expand into more areas. Glancy said about two urban locations are added each month.

Customers are sent rerouting information in text messages, revised maps or both, depending on the supplier. Alerts sent by some navigation firms are more detailed than others. Alpine Electronic’s Blackbird, for instance, informs users which lanes or shoulders are blocked, asks the user to accept or reject the information by touching a button the screen and, if accepted, provides specific rerouting suggestions.

Considering all that can be done with content generated by GPS users, it’s not surprising that a February report from London-based ABI Research said this type of information is becoming increasingly important to every player in the navigation industry.

TomTom, which makes personal navigation devices for consumers, added an opt-in, interactive feature to its products in 2007 and now has more than 500,000 users. Called “TomTom Map Share,” the application lets users enter map corrections on their navigation devices. The information is shared with all other users.

GyPSii, an initiative created by GeoSolutions B.V. of Amsterdam, has this feature and others that allow users to share photos, points-of-interest information and videos, all with GPS tags for getting to each location.

The Wall Street Journal noted in March that Sprint Nextel also is selling a service that allows cell-phone subscribers to locate their friends on a map viewable on their phone screens. Verizon Wireless has said it will offer a similar feature imminently, and even Yahoo Inc. has said its new oneConnect, a product that integrates location-tracking, instant messaging and other services into cell phones, will be available by the end of June. At last count, more than 25 manufacturers were marketing their own navigation products.

Despite the advances, though, there’s still no way to predict when accidents will block travel lanes and disrupt the flow.

One place where the industry is “nowhere,” said ALK’s Kornhauser, is in foretelling the future. Everybody’s working on that one, but it’s clear how little progress has been made since the invention of the crystal ball.

Forecasting based on general probability, however, is within grasp.

“We are getting much better with recurring congestion,” Kornhauser said. Continual analysis of traffic  patterns makes it possible to say where and when backups are likely to occur, and even where accidents are prone to happen — but not precisely when.

The best enhancement thus far results from combining an increasing number of data points with robust analysis. The systems are “getting good enough to work most of the time,” Kornhauser said. “Someone can begin to rely on them.”

It is also certainly possible for a system to offer the driver alternate routes around traffic congestion. More problematic is what the alternatives are really worth.

Sometimes, alternative routing “can end up being almost overcalculated,” Kornhauser said, yet not tell you what you really need to know. The algorithms are sophisticated enough to produce new routing on demand, but they can’t determine the trade-off between increased length of haul and time saved in skirting the bottleneck. Is time — and fuel, for that matter — really saved? And will the new route accommodate the truck?

ALK Technologies and others produce trucking-specific routing and navigation services that take into account bridge clearances and other potential tractor-trailer restrictions.

Kornhauser said he sees the true value of real-time traffic reporting, at least for trucking, as an element in overall fuel-use planning — the big picture.

Still, the scope of predictive traffic analysis appears to be improving at the level of identifying chronic flow problems, while the ability to respond quickly to unpredictable incidents is starting to expand.

And accuracy is monitored. Inrix conducts continual “ground truth” test-driving of its services internationally, typically covering more than 100,000 miles in a six-month period.

Improvements lead to cost reductions. ALK, for example, offers to send real-time traffic-flow data to a cell phone or other handheld device for less than $25 per month, as the company works to condense its data even further. Kornhauser said he hopes to cut end-user costs even more, to $10 or less a month.