Harvesting traffic information from mobile devices

A mobile device comprising:

• a set of processing units;
• and
• a machine readable medium storing a program for execution by at least one of the processing units, the program comprising:
• a global positioning (GPS) module for detecting positions of the mobile device;
• a data accumulation module for accumulating traffic data based on the detected positions of the mobile device;
• and
• a connection control module for (i) identifying an active data communication channel of the mobile device that is currently being used for transmitting application data for a particular application from the mobile device to a first set of servers, and (ii) using the identified active data communication channel to transmit the accumulated traffic data to a second set of servers and to transmit the application data to the first set of servers, (iii) monitoring the mobile device for a set of terminating conditions, and (iv) terminating, upon detection of at least one of the terminating conditions, the transmission of the derived traffic data to the second set of servers over the identified active data communication channel while maintaining the transmission of the application data to the first set of servers.

A method for providing real-time traffic data, the method comprising:

• at a first set of servers, receiving speed and position data transmitted by a plurality of mobile devices,
• wherein at least one of the mobile devices identifies an active data communication channel that is currently being used for transmitting application data for a particular application from the mobile device to a second set of servers and uses the identified active data communication channel to transmit the mobile device's speed and position data to the first set of servers and to transmit the application data to the second set of servers, wherein each mobile device monitors a set of terminating conditions and terminates the transmission of the derived traffic data to the first set of servers over the identified active data communication channel upon detection of at least one of the terminating conditions while maintaining the transmission of the application data to the second set of servers;
• generating real-time traffic data derived from the speed and position data received from the plurality of mobile devices;
• and
• providing the generated real-time traffic data to subscribing devices.

A method for collecting real-time traffic data from a mobile device, the method comprising:

• identifying an active data connection that is currently used by the mobile device for transmitting application data of a particular application from the mobile device to a first set of servers;
• gathering position data produced by the mobile device;
• deriving traffic data from the gathered position data;
• using the identified active data connection to transmit the derived traffic data to a second set of servers and to transmit the application data to a first set of servers;
• monitoring the mobile device for a set of termination conditions;
• and
• upon detection of at least one of the terminating conditions, terminating the transmission of the derived traffic data to the second set of servers over the identified active data communication channel while maintaining the transmission of the application data to the first set of servers.