Collecting data for traffic planning with GSM tracking

With the popularization of GSM mobile telephony now days a great majority of people use their mobile telephones while they are in vehicles. This assumption is the basis of tracking vehicles through GSM mobile telephones of the users. The idea is a collaboration of mobile telecommunications technology and traffic engineering. To analyze the idea we have to understand how the GSM network works, know its architecture and know the potencial usability of gained information in traffic planning. There are many ways of determining the position of mobile telephone that differ in the accuracy of positioning and difficulty of implementation in the GSM network. The manager of the GSM network is the service provider and is operating with all data that is necessary to maintain its functionality. Responsibility of the service provider is guarantee of anonymity that is defined in the law about personal data protection. Tracking of GSM phone users is possible only with their approval. As s proof of functionality a one week tracking of five candidates was executed. They were using a GPS method of tracking and they were recording all journeys they made during that time period. A few characteristic journeys made with GPS tracking were tracked with a method of cell identification. Additional mobile telephone software applications were used to obtain the tracking and capture the recorded data on mobile telephones of users. GPS tracking was executed with Nokia Sports Tracker. Tracking with cell identification method was executed with CellPos 1.43. For the survey of the gained data a geographical information program Google Earth was used. From the information base of GPS tracking I determined Kočar, B. 2009. Zbiranje podatkov za prometno planiranje z GSM sledenjem. V Diplomska naloga – UNI. Ljubljana, UL, FGG, Odd. Za gradbeništvo, Prometna smer. average velocities of the users on their journeys, transgressions of permissive velocity on the highways of the users, average travel times of users and average latitude differences of users. Both methods are useful for obtaining data and tracks of users journeys. The accuracy of journey track gained with the cell identification method is minor to journey track gained with GPS method. Advantage of the cell identification method is that it works on all GSM mobile telephones. That is not the case with GPS tracking method that works only on third generation phones with internal GPS receiver.