Nokia, NAVTEQ, and UC Berkeley, roll out Mobile Millennium

An interesting research project being deployed via the research center at Berkeley’s Institute of Transportation Studies. It is supported by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s SafeTrip-21 Initiative and the California Department of Transportation. Mobile Millenium is a public pilot that will collect and study traffic data received from GPS-enabled mobile devices, such as the Nokia N96, Nokia N95 and Nokia E71. As part of its open innovation model, Nokia Research Center is collaborating with UC Berkeley’s California Center for Innovative Transportation (CCIT), the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) and NAVTEQ to design, execute and analyze the traffic system. Participation in Mobile Millennium is open to anyone with a GPS-enabled mobile phone from a range of manufacturers, an unlimited data plan and the ability to install and run Java applications. The Java application enables participants to receive real-time traffic data and incident reports for main thoroughfares throughout much of the United States. In the Northern California area, a number of arterials and highways that are not currently equipped with sensors will begin to show traffic data as more users join the network. While the user-generated content is completely anonymous, each data point contributes a piece to the traffic picture which can benefit the entire user community. The pilot will operate over four to six months and up to 10 000 members of the public community can participate. See http://traffic.berkeley.edu/

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