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.

In message , at 16:55:43 on
Fri, 8 Sep 2017, David Walters remarked:

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'.

Interesting that 10x as many going via Baker St use the Bakerloo rather
than the Jubilee. Perceptions of the platform-concourse distances at
Waterloo, perhaps.

Also, did they redact trips made during moderate-serious disruption?
--
Roland Perry

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.

On 2017-09-08 14:40:46 +0000, Martin Coffee said:

On 08/09/17 15:00, Sam Wilson wrote:
On 2017-09-08 13:18:33 +0000, Martin Coffee said:

On 08/09/17 14:03, Recliner wrote:
[snip]
[TfL] said it was talking to the Information Commissioner’s Office about its
plans and passengers could opt out by switching their wifi off. It said
that the phone data was “de-personalised�, with nothing to identify
individuals.

The system works by using 1,070 wifi access points on the Tube network.
They pick up on a code that identifies each phone, the media access control
(MAC) address, and track them from point to point.

Each MAC address was “irreversibly� encrypted, TfL said. Prior to
encryption, a random code is added to each to ensure that the phone cannot
be identified even if the encryption could be reversed. No browsing data
was collected, meaning that emails and the internet habits of passengers
could not be shared with third parties.
[snip]
Let's face it. Even if encrypted, you cannot anonymise a MAC address
as it is unique to each phone.

You can turn it into something that can't be (realistically) turned
back into a MAC address that can be used to identify the
phone/tablet/laptop/whatever.

You don't have to turn the "anonymised" back to a MAC address to
de-anonymise the data. You just encrypt a MAC address and identify the
location data in just the same manner as the tracking occurs. Thus the
location can still be re-associated with the original MAC address.

Sure, if you know a particular MAC address and the encryption procedure
and access to the location data then you may be able (and I note Dr B's
comments in his response) to recreate the key and therefore track the
MAC address. Most of us (and I again I bow to Dr B) probably can't do
that.

There has been recent suggestions that it might become a criminal
offence to de-anonymise anonymised personal information. It seems to
me that this legislation is urgently needed.

Surely the most likely people to want to do this would be criminals
anyway, so criminalising their activities seems slightly pointless.
Deterring casual peepers is probably worth doing.

Sam

--
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

On 2017\09\08 16:50, Basil Jet wrote:
On 2017\09\08 16:07, 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


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.

Two Tubes:
Kennington
Elephant (via Northern)
Oxford Circus (presumably the fastest)
Leicester Sq
Piccadilly Circ
Green Pk via Picc
Green Pk via Vic
Euston via Vic
Euston via City Branch
Euston Sq - Warren Street
Great Portland Street - Regents Park
Baker Street via Bakerloo
Baker Street via Jubilee
Bank
London Bridge via Jubilee
Camden Town (admittedly takes you though Euston twice, but there is less
walking at Camden Town)
Monument
Stockwell
Westminster via Circle
Embankment via Circle

One Tube + one NR:
Elephant (via Thameslink)
London Bridge via Southeastern
Vauxhall
Kentish Town via Thameslink
West Hampstead via Thameslink

Some of these are rather circuitous, but when the network is screwed in
various ways most of these could become a reasonable route.

Also Warren Street via Vic
And there are two lines from Embankment to Waterloo.

In article ,
(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/t...ack-commuters-
via-phones-to-reduce-overcrowding-b0ss982j7?shareToken=d3406a5e9a7b95fb4dd495
07b8be3071

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...ng-heres-every
thing-we-learned-from-tfls-official-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.

Only used by 0.1% of punters. Not as wacky as the one involving 3 changes
with a surprising number of takers (1.2%): King's Cross - Baker St - Green
Park - Waterloo.

Older readers may remember the "Follow the lights" signage between major
central London tube stations. They were fairly small cubes with different
colours for different destinations and would presumably have told people to
go via Oxford Circus because of the same level interchange there. It's what
I'll do next Friday. Anyone remember when they were removed?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article , (Roland Perry)
wrote:

In message , at 13:03:37 on Fri, 8
Sep 2017, Recliner remarked:

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.

Assisted, no doubt, by TfL signage which frequently points to
non-optimum routes on account of fearing overloading of the optimum
route.

Yes, choosing King's Cross is unfortunate as passengers are deliberately
directed a very long way round to get to the tube platforms there,
especially from the main line to the Victoria Line.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article , (Roland Perry)
wrote:

In message , at 16:55:43
on Fri, 8 Sep 2017, David Walters remarked:


http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2017/09/lon...ing-heres-ever
ything-we-learned-from-tfls-official-report/
has an extract of the report showing 18 diagrams. It's really 17 routes
and 'others'.

Interesting that 10x as many going via Baker St use the Bakerloo
rather than the Jubilee. Perceptions of the platform-concourse
distances at Waterloo, perhaps.

Also, did they redact trips made during moderate-serious disruption?

I assume not. So that may explain some of the wackier choices.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In , Recliner writes:
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.

Transport for London is assessing how best to employ the system in the
future and admitted yesterday that it could be used to track passenger
movements in “real time�.

It said it was talking to the Information Commissioner’s Office about its
plans and passengers could opt out by switching their wifi off. It said
that the phone data was “de-personalised�, with nothing to identify
individuals.

The system works by using 1,070 wifi access points on the Tube network.
They pick up on a code that identifies each phone, the media access control
(MAC) address, and track them from point to point.

Each MAC address was “irreversibly� encrypted, TfL said. Prior to
encryption, a random code is added to each to ensure that the phone cannot
be identified even if the encryption could be reversed. No browsing data
was collected, meaning that emails and the internet habits of passengers
could not be shared with third parties.

Privacy campaigners expressed concern over the technology. Renate Samson,
chief executive of Big Brother Watch, said: “Analysing movements of people
via their device may provide unique analytical benefits but is still a
process of tracking and monitoring as they go about their daily business.
It is critical that the public are completely clear on what is being done,
when, how and why, and how they can opt out.�

TfL, which handles up to 4.8 million journeys a day, spent £100,000 testing
the technology in 54 stations.

Val Shawcross, deputy mayor for transport, said: “The analysis of secure,
de-personalised wifi data could enable us to map the journey patterns of
millions of passengers and understand in much greater detail how people
move around our transport network. It will provide real benefits, helping
TfL tackle overcrowding, provide more information for passengers about
their best route and help prioritise investment.�


Malthus and Orwell were spot on!

Basil Jet writes:

And there are two lines from Embankment to Waterloo.

At one time it would often have been quicker between Waterloo and
Embankment to walk over Hungerford Bridge. Though now that Hungerford
Bridge has been replaced by the Golden Jubilee Bridges, there is no
longer a direct walkway between them and Waterloo station.