On 08/09/17 16:55, David Walters wrote:
On Fri, 8 Sep 2017 16:07:44 +0100, Graeme Wall wrote:
On 08/09/2017 14:03, Recliner wrote:
From:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/transport-for-london-may-track-commuters-via-phones-to-reduce-overcrowding-b0ss982j7?shareToken=d3406a5e9a7b95fb4dd49507b8be3 071

Commuters could be tracked using their mobile phones under plans to tackle
overcrowding and increase revenue from advertising.

Transport for London (TfL) followed 5.6 million phones over four weeks
before Christmas via wifi in stations and is assessing how to develop the
monitoring system. The trial identified pinch-points in stations,
overcrowding on platforms and favoured routes around the network.

Controversially, the system could be used to sell advertising, with
companies charged more to buy space on platforms where travellers spend the
longest time.

Anonymised phone data is seen as a far more accurate way to track journeys
than entry and exit logs at barriers.

An evaluation of the trial, published today, shows that passengers used 18
routes to go between King’s Cross/St Pancras and Waterloo, the busiest
stations on the network, with 40 per cent of people who were tracked
failing to take the two fastest routes. The data showed that even within
stations a third of passengers did not use the quickest routes between
platforms and could be wasting up to two minutes.


I'm still trying to work out 18 different ways to travel between the two
by tube.

http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2017/09/lon...ficial-report/
has an extract of the report showing 18 diagrams. It's really 17 routes
and 'others'.

Waterloo - London Bridge - Bank - Liverpool Street - King's Cross
is an interesting route choice.

Figure 3 makes it quite obvious that it quite possible to de anonymise
the data given an individual MAC address.