Interview with Decell: Real-Time Traffic in Israel and Central Europe
Last month Garmin signed a partnership with Decell, to “real-time traffic-enable“ its Personal Navigation Devices in Israel. The Israeli company also offers its services to Garmin and others PND and mobile navigation vendors in Central Europe.
GPS Business News interviewed with Jonathan Silverberg, CEO of the company.
From GPS Business News (www.gpsbusinessnews.com) 14/07/11
by Ludovic Privat
GPS Business News: Can you briefly give us an introduction to Decell?
Jonathan Silverberg: Decell Technologies is a world pioneer and global leader in the field of providing accurate real-time road traffic information. Decell's premium traffic information, Swift-i traffic, is mainly based on the anonymous monitoring of the location and movement of mobile phones and GPS devices. We were founded in 2000 and we currently provide Swift-i traffic to the navigation, media, enterprise, government, and mobile markets.
GPS BN: In which country do you provide your real-time traffic service today?
JS: Swift-i traffic is commercially available today in Austria, Poland, Israel, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Our services vary from delivering real-time traffic information directly into existing platforms, such as navigation systems, to providing it with our own traffic applications. One example for that are real-time traffic alerts sent to subscribers via mobile phones or e-mails. We also operate different types of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems, cellular and web-based traffic maps, fleet-management applications and tailored solutions combining features from different applications.
In each country of operation Decell cooperates with local partners in the traffic industry, such as CE-Traffic in the territory of Central Europe. This allows the combination of Decell's technical expertise and experience in the global market with CE-Traffic's local acquaintance and service in each country.
GPS BN: Can you explain us the technology you use to provide real-time traffic?
JS: Using unique algorithms, we perform designated statistical analyzing and smart fusion of several different raw data inputs. The main source is floating car data (FCD) from both anonymous location signals of mobile users derived from cellular networks and GPS data from GPS devices. We also fuse data from fixed infrastructure such as road-sensors and traffic cameras as well as incident data, providing with journalistic information about the traffic status. The final sample size reaches millions at any point in time in a single country.
In the analysis process, we filter out irrelevant data, such as information from pedestrians, busses, or trains. The system also automatically prioritizes the information from the different sources according to the amount of validated inputs received. Swift-i traffic maintains continuity in many levels: it provides with high quality information for the entire road network in each country, it is available 24/7 and updated every 30 seconds, it maintains high accuracy levels at any time and in any place and it quickly recognizes unexpected changes in the traffic behavior.
Swift-i traffic also identifies and indicates abnormal traffic occurrences, based on the combination of historical and real-time information. In this manner it also performs sophisticated real-time traffic prediction.
It is important to emphasize that our system maintains total end-user privacy, with full compliance of regulations. All outgoing network information is purely statistical, anonymous, and provides no specific details on individual user locations.
GPS BN: It seems to be difficult to get into partnerships with wireless operators for cellular floating data, what is your take on that?
JS: Establishing relationships with wireless operators is indeed a long process. However, once established it usually becomes a long-term valuable cooperation; aside from being a raw data source, the operator benefits from the final traffic information when it either incorporates it in its existing offering or creates a new advanced traffic service using Decell's information and platform.
GPS BN: What are the customers today and what kind of delivery method (RDS-TMC, GPRS,...) they use?
JS: Decell delivers Swift-i traffic in all available methods. Our navigation customers, such as Garmin, iGo and Mio, use both RDS-TMC and GPRS. Connected mobile services, such as Telmap, Appello and NDrive use GPRS.
We also deliver our information in real-time through the web to leading local websites and radio stations, government authorities such as the police, different car-fleets and of course, the cellular operators, such as A-1 telekom in Austria and all Israeli operators.
GPS BN: How big is the company today?
JS: We have 20 employees today.
GPS BN: How do you see the future for Decell in the next 2-3 years?
JS: First of all our prime objective is to keep the excellent relationship we have with our existing partners in all territories. In addition, we also plan to introduce swift-i traffic in several new countries which will be announced soon.
Link to the Original Article (image)