Tube bosses to track commuters using wifi

Tracked: Tube passengers' movements will be tracked through their mobile phones
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Saphora Smith18 November 2016

Transport for London will start tracking Tube passengers’ journeys through their mobile phones.

In a four week trial starting on Monday, TfL will collect Wi-Fi requests from passengers’ devices to map people’s travel routes in the underground network.

Currently TfL can only monitor where passengers enter and exit the underground, with no information on how people make their journeys between those points.

The transport body said it hopes the trial will shed light on how passengers move through stations and how crowds develop, which will in turn help speed up journeys.

In a statement to tech website The Register TfL said they hoped to use the data to improve the flow of traffic, station design, safety measures and provide better travel information.

They stressed that the data collected will be de-personalised, meaning TfL will not be able to identify individuals and no browsing data will be collected.

The trial, which starts on November 21, will collect Wi-Fi connection data at 54 London Underground stations within Zones 1-4.

TfL’s tracking system will be able to follow any device which has WiFi enabled.

As the passenger moves through the network a Wi-Fi enabled device will continually search for networks to connect to, by sending out a unique identifier address to nearby routers.

TfL will be able to follow this unique address, mapping a passenger’s journey through the Tube.

Shashi Verma, Chief Technology Officer at Transport for London, said: “This short trial will help us understand whether WiFi connection data could help us plan and operate our transport network more effectively for customers.

“Historically, if we wanted to know how people travelled we would have to rely on paper surveys and manual counting, which is expensive, time consuming and limited in detail and reliability.

“We hope the results of this trial will enable us to provide customers with even better information for journey planning and avoiding congestion.”

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