Berkeley press release:
Union City, Calif. -- Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and Nokia today (Friday, Feb. 8) tested technology that could soon transform the way drivers navigate through congested highways and obtain information about road conditions. In the unprecedented field experiment, transportation researchers tested the feasibility of using GPS-enabled mobile phones to monitor real-time traffic flow while preserving the privacy of the phones' users.

One hundred vehicles were deployed onto a 10-mile stretch of I-880 between Hayward and Fremont for seven hours in the experiment, dubbed "Mobile Century" and primarily funded by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). Each car was equipped with a Nokia N95 mobile phone that ran special software to periodically send anonymous speed readings from the integrated GPS to servers that then computed traffic conditions. Information was displayed on the Internet, allowing viewers to visualize traffic in real time. An independent tracking feature allowed the command center set up in Union City to track the position of the cars to coordinate the experiment and ensure the safety of the participants.