...seems to be open to anybody *provided* they live in Northern California.

they claim to not collect any identifying info with the gps coordiantes/velocity. I'd be more inclined to believe that if the client was actually open source

The government spy on all of the cars, all of the time. It's for our own good you know.

Had been thinking this would be a good idea myself, given you've got a GPS device with internet connectivity to feed back information.

Problem is going to be reliability of the information.

Another similar facility I've often thought about is gathering data on user preferred routes.

e.g. if the route normally suggested doesn't match with the routes people typically take, then perhaps there's a reason for that, and it could update suggested routes with the preferred routes (e.g. no, that's not a road, it's a field!)

Re: open source

Fine, though you should be more concerned at the moment about Google Maps, which because it requires an Internet connection on a mobile to even work, Google are gathering data about your whereabouts the instant you fire it up (and even if you don't use GPS, the operator cell info is gathered). Nokia Maps at least doesn't require the net connection if you pre-download the maps.

The better solution is what TomTom does in NL. They get the movements of all mobiles of one mobile operator. Its enough to get the timing when the phone moves between the base stations, you don't really need the exact GPS details.

/Ingvar

This is already being done by Tomtom, and has been for at least a year. They record the route data and speeds etc for journeys being made using their kit. This is then incorporated into the latest maps to allow for routes to be plotted based on expected journey times rather than some arbritary "average" speed. Its called Tomtoms "IQ Routes".