Optus mobile phones tracked for traffic data

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 07 July 2009 07:56

Your IT - Mobility

"As a result of the launch of the OTV service, Australian governments and road users now have access to high quality travel time and congestion information on every major highway and freeway," said David Quayle, managing director of Traffic Intelligence.

"This data will be highly beneficial to all road users and uniquely, does not require any investment in infrastructure by a government department," he added.

There's no indication at this stage that the Optus Traffic View will be available directly to end users.

"With the launch of Optus Traffic View, Australian road authorities and traffic planning agencies now have access to high quality travel time and congestion information on every major highway and freeway based on information generated from the Optus mobile network," said Scott Mason, business marketing director at Optus.

ITIS sounds pleased by its Australian licensee's success.

"The launch of a nationwide service in conjunction with Traffic Intelligence and Optus represents a major achievement for ITIS and demonstrates our ability to successfully penetrate markets outside the UK," said ITIS CEO Stuart Marks.

"The initial results provided by the ARRB are very encouraging and serve to show how accurate the ITIS technology can be in detecting traffic flow information using data from cellular networks," he added.

A trial of CFVD in Sydney began in late 2006 and was backed by Traffic Intelligence, Optus, and Nokia.