Neal Campbell, a veteran of the mobile and wireless industries, has been named chief executive of TrafficCast International, a Madison company that provides digital traffic data.

Campbell is expected to help expand the company's market from traffic data supplied to fleet services and commercial clients like Yahoo! into cellular phones and other GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) devices. TrafficCast co-founder and president Connie Li will become the company's chief operating officer.

Campbell said he is talking to new investors for the company, which is expected to add to its work force.

More than 550 million GPS-enabled handsets — devices like cell phones and auto navigators — are expected to ship by 2012, and revenue from location-based services is expected to jump to $8 billion in 2011 from $485 million last year, according to ABI Research and Gartner, two technology research firms.

"We're really poised with the technology we have to take advantage of that," Campbell said.

TrafficCast International's Chinese affiliate uses cellular phone probes as users move from tower to tower to calculate highway speeds and Campbell said the technology could be expanded eventually in the U.S.

During 16 years at Motorola, Campbell worked in engineering, marketing and executive management. He led the company's development of software location-based services in mobile devices.

In his most recent position, he served as executive vice president of strategic marketing and next-generation products at ISCO International, a supplier of software-based wireless filtering products.

— Marv Balousek