The authorities of the capital are going to control traffic by monitoring the movement of citizens on their mobile phones. It is planned that information on routes to the Moscow Department of Transport will be transmitted by cellular operators.
At the beginning of 2012, a start was made on the creation of a mathematical model of Moscow's traffic flows, which, as expected, will not only help in the fight against traffic jams, but will also allow coordinating projects for laying new routes and building roads. The “big three” mobile operators are called upon to assist in the regulation of road traffic.
In addition to the tracks of mobile operators, the projected model of transport movement in the capital will also use information obtained from measurements of the flow of urban transport passengers from turnstiles, traffic intensity sensors, as well as the results of population surveys. Taken together, these data will make it possible to draw up an interactive traffic map in the capital.
The constructed model will become the basis for calculating options for changing traffic, for example, when changing traffic light cycles, creating new intersections or organizing pedestrian crossings and bicycle paths.
A similar model is used to combat traffic jams in Tokyo. Data for it is collected from the tracks of cellular operators, flow density sensors and road cameras. To eliminate a sudden congestion on any street, the system reconfigures traffic light cycles automatically.
Experts are now discussing how legitimate such tracking is, and whether this idea will comply with the law "On Personal Data". They believe that even if the cellular companies give the authorities their consent to provide information on the movement of their subscribers, then with great caution. Currently, the issue of personal data protection is raised quite seriously by telecom operators, and they will not agree to provide such information in a personalized form. It can only be anonymized data.
