Abstract: A system and a method for determining a velocity and a direction of travel of a vehicle on a roadway are provided. The method includes selecting a portion of the roadway and determining a cellular phone base station that is within a desired distance from the portion of the roadway, from a plurality of cellular phone base stations. The method further includes inducing a cellular phone base station to transmit a first message to a first global positioning system transceiver unit disposed in a first vehicle. The first message requests a first position coordinate from the first GPS transceiver unit. The method further includes receiving a second message from the first GPS transceiver unit having the first position coordinate and a first time value, and inducing the cellular phone base station to transmit a third message to the first GPS transceiver unit. The third message requests a second position coordinate of the first GPS transceiver unit.