Found out about this today, up until now 802.11p hardware is very expensive, and so you cannot easily do anything with V2x messages like CAM or SPAT, but the fact this was done with sub £20 hardware is really interesting.
For a while I tried creating traffic-light-free bicycle routes from my home in the suburbs to my office in Amsterdam center (because intersections, especially with trams, can sometimes take a long time.
Unfortunately there was no API with data on which intersections have traffic lights and I had to build these routes manually in Strava using satellite images.
I did learn in the process that some traffic light data is actually available from the government, but only for selected partners. The Flitsmeister app for example has it and shows at some traffic lights how long it will take for the light to turn green (in a car, not on a bicycle)
This is an English translation from the talk description:
Did you know that if your car supports *Car2X* via *ITS-G5*, it transmits its exact GPS position, speed, longitudinal and lateral acceleration, pedal positions, length and width, and much more—all unencrypted—up to four times per second on a 5-GHz band?
Trams in Graz also transmit this data, including their line numbers. This allows us to track the trams in real time and display them on a map.
Many traffic lights in Graz now support *C-ITS* and transmit data every second regarding the exact configuration of the lanes, the current signal status, and when the next phase is expected.
With an *ESP32-C5*, we can already receive this data from a distance of several hundred meters.
We’ll show you how we collect and process this data. On a live map, you can see (within the coverage area) trams, the color of the traffic lights and when they’ll change next, and which cars equipped with Car2X are currently driving and at what speed.
Using Grafana, we display historical data on traffic light cycles and statistics, such as wait times at crosswalks and in traffic lanes. We also give you access to the collected data for your own analysis.
To improve coverage, we need your help! We’ve built a board with *ESP32-C5* and *PoE* that lets you capture *C-ITS* packets yourself and share them with us for our open map, or process them on your own.
How would you overcome the data source trust issue? In open data collection you either fingerprint the data to ensure validity or you anonymize the data to provide security, but striking the balance between the two seems like the biggest of hurdles in an effort like this.
The risk of the data being invalid seems as risky as the privacy implications in this case.
In my experience, the congestion data is not the issue: even with the split across Google / TomTom / Here / Apple / some hyperlocal alternatives, everyone seems to have reasonably good idea where the traffic jams are. Having up to date POIs is a different can of worms only solved by Google, not by some clever algo, but through the sheer brand recognition. They're the only ones that have this data fed to them by POI owners.
> We need global open congestion data. At least on the european scale.
Congestion data was also used to track the advancing Russian army invasion in Ukraine's urban area according to the probably sponsored articles on Bloomberg for Project Maven.
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Unfortunately there was no API with data on which intersections have traffic lights and I had to build these routes manually in Strava using satellite images.
I did learn in the process that some traffic light data is actually available from the government, but only for selected partners. The Flitsmeister app for example has it and shows at some traffic lights how long it will take for the light to turn green (in a car, not on a bicycle)
Did you know that if your car supports *Car2X* via *ITS-G5*, it transmits its exact GPS position, speed, longitudinal and lateral acceleration, pedal positions, length and width, and much more—all unencrypted—up to four times per second on a 5-GHz band?
Trams in Graz also transmit this data, including their line numbers. This allows us to track the trams in real time and display them on a map.
Many traffic lights in Graz now support *C-ITS* and transmit data every second regarding the exact configuration of the lanes, the current signal status, and when the next phase is expected.
With an *ESP32-C5*, we can already receive this data from a distance of several hundred meters.
We’ll show you how we collect and process this data. On a live map, you can see (within the coverage area) trams, the color of the traffic lights and when they’ll change next, and which cars equipped with Car2X are currently driving and at what speed.
Using Grafana, we display historical data on traffic light cycles and statistics, such as wait times at crosswalks and in traffic lanes. We also give you access to the collected data for your own analysis.
To improve coverage, we need your help! We’ve built a board with *ESP32-C5* and *PoE* that lets you capture *C-ITS* packets yourself and share them with us for our open map, or process them on your own.
It's important so that alternatives to Google Maps and Waze (Google) can emerge.
To create congestion data, one needs to own an OS with location tracking, or be an international mobile network. Won't happen.
[disclaimer : I work on an open source alternative to big tech's maps]
The risk of the data being invalid seems as risky as the privacy implications in this case.
Congestion data was also used to track the advancing Russian army invasion in Ukraine's urban area according to the probably sponsored articles on Bloomberg for Project Maven.