Real-time traffic monitoring using mobile phone data

Vodafone proposes to offer road traffic information services to its mobile phone customers. Such systems usually require some sort of static infrastructure to measure traffic flow (e.g. magnetic inductance loops buried in the surface of the road, or cameras combined with number plate recognition technology). In contrast, Vodafone intends to generate traffic flow and velocity data by using the signalling information that is already generated by the standard operation of its mobile phone network. This report investigates the feasibility of this idea by analysing a data set provided by a pilot project on the autobahn network in Southern Germany. The initial aim is to design filters that operate on the mobile phone signalling data and whose output is a low-dimensional description of road traffic conditions. The eventual aim is to develop filters which give short-term forecasts of future traffic conditions.