We’ve heard murmurs that Nokia had plans for a next-gen traffic service to go head to head with TomTom HD Traffic, and now it’s official: Nokia’s Mobile Millennium project will collect data from the roads and analyse congestion hotspots.
The mobile maker is still researching the problem of traffic and congestion, working with UC Berkeley’s California Center for Innovative Transportation, the California Department of Transportation and Navteq, so there’s plenty of grey matter behind the issue.
In the future, it should turn Nokia’s phones into traffic-predicting wonderphones, that’ll navigate around congestion even before it’s fully formed.
A next-gen Nokia phone could even direct commuters to public transport if all available routes are blocked, and if that’s genuinely the fastest path to their destination.
The study is open to the public, with anyone owning a GPS equipped handset (not just Nokia’s) and with an unlimited data plan invited to take part.
It’ll run for up to six months, with all the data remaining completely anonymous and up to 10,000 people taking part.
Out now | £free | Nokia
