Real time status of a device's movements may be determined from a sequence of location observations. The status may be in the form of a state, which may be “stay”, “transit”, “pause”, and “unknown”. A state transition may occur from transit to stay when the device has remained within a predefined radius for a predefined time period. Prior to being labeled a “stay”, a device that may have ceased moving but has not stayed at that location for enough time may be labeled “pause”. For those devices in a “transit” state, a mode of transport may be determined. The real time analysis system may be a low-overhead mechanism by which new location observations may be received and processed. The resulting data may be used by traffic analysts to monitor congestion, for real time traffic data for commuters, and other uses.