The next time you find yourself talking on your cell while inching through a traffic jam, ignore the finger from the driver behind you, because you might be helping traffic planners solve the congestion problem. AirSage Inc. has come up with a clever way to identify highway traffic holdups by measuring cell phone volume; more cell traffic, more car traffic. More car traffic, more congestion.

By tracking (anonymously) the amount of cell phone traffic on the Sprint network on highways in 46 U.S. cities it claims it can estimate with great accuracy the amount of congestion. It then provides this info to state departments of transportation for alternate route planning and emergency services, and to private companies for fleet management. Also among Airsage's clients are TV and radio stations.

The logical next step for AirSage is to offer drivers a service that returns this information to their cell phones, so that they can seek out a faster route to work. Perhaps such a service could help Sprint staunch the lost-subscriber bleeding.

Cell phone yakking while driving- it's not just part of the problem, it's part of the solution.

Gracias to BusinessWeek