Mobile monitoring for Japan’s traffic jams

NTT DoCoMo, Japan's largest mobile carrier, will use location data from its 61.5 million subscriber devices to build a platform that monitors traffic conditions across the country. DoCoMo said it will use its access to massive amounts of location data to build a cloud platform of traffic information on which services can be built. The company will target individual consumers with products like navigation and drive recording services, and corporate clients such as car insurance companies with traffic monitor
May 14, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
7342 NTT DoCoMo, Japan's largest mobile carrier, will use location data from its 61.5 million subscriber devices to build a platform that monitors traffic conditions across the country.

DoCoMo said it will use its access to massive amounts of location data to build a cloud platform of traffic information on which services can be built. The company will target individual consumers with products like navigation and drive recording services, and corporate clients such as car insurance companies with traffic monitoring and analysis.

The company is to invest US$500 million to take a seven per cent share in struggling Japanese electronics manufacturer Pioneer as part of the effort. Pioneer is a major manufacturer of car navigation products, and already uses DoCoMo's networks for wireless services in its systems. The firms will aim to begin rolling out new services together from this year.

Pioneer recently announced a new car navigation system it will launch this summer that automatically snaps images at popular driving spots and shares them among drivers in real-time to provide information on road conditions.
Networking & Communication Systems Urban Traffic Control

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Smarter transport remains key to smart cities
    January 9, 2018
    Colin Sowman looks at some of the challenges and solutions that will provide enhanced transport efficiency in tomorrow’s smarter cities. However you define a ‘smart city’, one of the key ingredients will be an efficient transport system. As most governments and city authorities face financial constraints, incremental improvements in the existing systems is the most likely way forward. In London, new trains and signalling are improving the capacity of the Underground but that then reveals previously
    Read More
  • Data goldmines offer rich pickings
    May 31, 2013
    Astronomical is not too grand a term to describe the current rate of growth in transportation-related data. Massive amounts of traffic related information, such as speed, volume, incidents and weather are being generated every second by road operators and users alike. Big data’ derives its name from the sheer amount and complexity of available raw data. Its potential value is starting to emerge among the intelligent transportation systems community. A gold rush is taking place to capture this value, with da
    Read More
  • Kapsch offers EETS–compliant Tolling Services
    June 7, 2017
    Kapsch’s Bernd Eberstaller explains how the company’s new Tolling Services will help expand the number and capabilities of EETS services providers. By 2017, the European Electronic Tolling Service (EETS) should have been in operation for several years but it still remains some way away and with several significant hurdles still to be addressed. The concept behind EETS is simple enough: road users should be able to drive across Europe using only a single transponder to pay for all tolls, with the account-han
    Read More
  • When will Google wake up to MaaS gold mine?
    December 3, 2018
    Mobility services are a potential gold mine for data-hungry tech companies. That being the case, Andrew Bunn asks: what exactly happens when giants such as Google and Amazon decide to get their teeth into MaaS? There are many different perspectives on Mobility as a Service (MaaS), with many different views on what the latest and future applications of technology are going to bring to transportation infrastructure. However, there is one question that does not seem to come up at all. Up to now, MaaS-relate
    Read More

Highlighted Content