Real-time traffic condition measurement and presentation of user-based route data
View Patent ↗In embodiments of the present invention improved capabilities are described for identifying locations of a plurality of automobiles using cell phone tower triangulation to locate a cell phone within each of the plurality of automobiles, and calculating a vehicle speed for each of the plurality of automobiles using the identified locations, and creating a traffic condition measure for a route in proximity to the locations. The computer program product may repeat this process in real-time to calculate a real-time traffic condition measure that may be used to predict a travel time, and may respond to a user's request with an audio alert on the user's cell phone that comes from a speaker on the cell phone that can also be combined with a wirelessly-enabled speaker in an automobile or a wirelessly-enabled headset. The audio alert may be displayed in conjunction with at least one navigation option pertaining to the route.
1. A computer program product embodied in a non-transitory computer readable medium that, when executed on one or more computers, performs the steps of:
Step One: identifying a first location, at time one, of a plurality of automobiles using cell phone tower triangulation to locate a cell phone within each of the plurality of automobiles;
identifying a second location, at a time two, subsequent to time one, for each of the plurality of automobiles using cell phone tower triangulation to locate the cell phone within each of the plurality of automobiles;
calculating a vehicle speed for each of the plurality of automobiles using the first location at time one and the second location at time two;
using the calculated vehicle speed for each of the plurality of automobiles to create a traffic condition measure for a route in proximity to the first and second locations;
Step Two: iteratively performing Step One, in real-time, at a time interval to calculate a real-time traffic condition measure;
receiving a user request from a user's cell phone for traffic condition information associated with the route, wherein the user's request is further associated with sending a signal from a user's cell phone to a cell phone tower indicating that a user has entered a geographic location; and
displaying an alert on the user's cell phone based at least in part on the traffic condition measure, wherein the traffic condition measure is related to the geographic location.
2. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the alert is an audio alert issued from a speaker associated with the cell phone.
3. The computer program product of claim 2 , wherein the speaker associated with the phone is a wirelessly-enabled speaker affixed to the automobile.
4. The computer program product of claim 2 , wherein the speaker associated with the phone is a wirelessly-enabled headset.
5. A computer program product embodied in a non-transitory computer readable medium that, when executed on one or more computers, performs the steps of:
Step One: identifying a first location, at time one, of a plurality of automobiles using cell phone tower triangulation to locate a cell phone within each of the plurality of automobiles;
identifying a second location, at a time two, subsequent to time one, for each of the plurality of automobiles using cell phone tower triangulation to locate the cell phone within each of the plurality of automobiles;
calculating a vehicle speed for each of the plurality of automobiles using the first location at time one and the second location at time two;
using the calculated vehicle speed for each of the plurality of automobiles to create a traffic condition measure for a route in proximity to the first and second locations;
Step Two: iteratively performing Step One, in real-time, at a time interval to calculate a real-time traffic condition measure;
receiving a user request from a user's cell phone for traffic condition information associated with the route, wherein the user's request is further associated with sending a signal from a user's cell phone to a cell phone tower indicating that a user has entered a geographic location; and
displaying an alert on the user's cell phone based at least in part on the traffic condition measure, wherein the traffic condition measure is related to the geographic location, and wherein the alert is displayed in conjunction with at least one navigation option pertaining to the route.