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Comment by glitchdout | Hacker News Reader

information about you and the places you visit != free

Not exactly free, but the places you visit can be observed with the naked eye from public property, and a network of cameras feeding into ANPR and facial recognition would be a hell of a lot cheaper (and more reliable) than a mapping product.

Not to mention that realtime traffic data and intelligent routing around congestion is only workable by tracking individual vehicles on the road and recording how long it takes them to get from A to B.

> Not to mention that realtime traffic data and intelligent routing around congestion is only workable by tracking individual vehicles on the road and recording how long it takes them to get from A to B.

Wrong. There is a better solution, used for traffic lights that adapt to traffic:

Use an inductive loop to count every vehicle and its speed at ever lane of every intersection and exit.

Far lower cost yet, and provides far better data. (Also is totally anonymous)

>Far lower cost

Um, what? Lower cost to dig up a street and install infrastructure inside it, than to use the cheap and ubiquitous internet and GPS connected computers that are already in every car?

The sum total cost paid by users of maps in data charges and electricity alone outweigh the cost of implementing a public system. Just because the cost is distributed does not mean it's not being paid.

If you want to compare induction loops against power and data charges then you need to magically make your induction loops capable of giving turn-by-turn navigation without a device in the car.

You need to dig up every street every winter for repairs anyway, and you need the inductive loops for adapted traffic lights anyway.

Effectively, you need the infrastructure, most cities on the world have it in some way – either as inductive loops, or by using RFID toll systems, or similar.

So, you have it already, and you can get the same data out of it without the cost of breaking everyone's privacy.

I live in a very heavy snow area in the North East US (Buffalo region) and we definitely don't "dig up every street every winter for repairs". What is usually done is that when the snow thaws and the temperature warms a crew will come out and fill necessary holes in the pavement, not dig up streets. This process is very fast, it only takes a few minutes per hole and would definitely not include digging up the streets.

Here in Germany we fill the holes every few weeks in winter, and then rebuild the street completely every few years when more than 50% of the street are those filled holes.

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