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Solutions for Avoiding Traffic?
gregwbrooks asks: "Technology lets us wardrive and kludge together interesting uses for the OnStar equipment in our vehicles, but what about the one thing I really need: On-demand, real-time traffic information? These guys have a BREW-based app that downloads real-time traffic maps to your cell phone -- it just rolled out in Chicago and Milwaukee, and apparently is going national soon. What other options are out there for someone who doesn't want to fiddle around with tiny web pages on his phone while driving?"
If only there were some kind of wireless information distribution mechanism where a human could give traffic reports vocally. Reports from different places could be communicated across different "channels" from different wireless broadcasting "stations". Since traffic isn't always a problem, and since people aren't always interested in traffic, these channels could also distribute other types of information, perhaps even audio entertainment. The only problem is how to pay for it. Wait, I got it! Audio commercial advertisements! Perhaps some day all cars will come equipped with one of these receiver devices as standard equipment.
What would be very slick would be an open source system that integrates with wireless data (GPRS, EDGE, WCDMA, WiFi -- take your pick) and GPS to project onto your windshield in heads-up-display (HUD) manner what the traffic conditions are ahead of you. Being open source, you could then add whatever modules interest you so that your HUD could indicate when you are near a Starbucks, state park, 2600 meeting location, weather conditions ahead, or whatever you might want to know while driving. Heck, with a system like that motorists could even pinpoint the locations of speed traps for each other. Imagine your HUD flashing a red warning of "speed trap 1500 meters ahead"...
I was gonna say take the bus or carpool.
Unfortunately mass-transit leaves a lot to be desired in the majority of U.S. cities.
These devices/apps are just what you want.
This was also talked about previously.
You can dial 511 on your phone in San Fransico and give your starting point end and end point and it will give you a real time traffic assesment and the time from point A to point B. With some pretty cool voice regonition software.
Story about automated traffic in SF
I heard a story on All Things Considered just yesterday about a phone based system for finding drive times between two locations. It is called 511 , it is available only in the Bay Area right now, it uses a variety of data including road sensors and speed pass data for near-real time traffic data calculations. It sounds iteresting : http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=17889 73
I had a 55 mile commute for a while, right through the heart of Minneapolis, and through the worst strechs of traffic in the twin cities. I looked at all the traffic info I could, but in the end I rarely changed my route. Sure I had a few alternates, but a couple miles of stop and go is still faster than any of the alternates that take me 20 miles out of the way. Side streets do not go through, nobody wants traffic in their neighborhood (the kids can and do play ball in the street) so they make it impossible to take anything but major routes. Combine that with traffic lights timed to stop you on the secondary streets and you are much better off stoped on the freeway than moving on a "empty" side street.
Course public transportation would be better, if it worked... I'm not holding my breath.
XM Radio just added over 20 channels for most major metropolitan areas that give you a quick 5 minute traffic and weather report. Find out if your city is listed here.
Of course, the cost of the hardware and the monthly subscription fee may turn many off.
Talk to your managers about telecommuting a day or two a week. That way you only have to worry about the traffic between your bedroom and your home office.
The other solution that I've found is to live no more than five miles from the office. This gives me a typical commute of about 10 minutes from the front door to my desk.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
Remember, the #1 cause of traffic jams is traffic. The best way to avoid traffic jams is to not drive.
As soon as everyone starts using fancy new technowidgets to find alternate routes routes to traffic jams, traffic will be routed to those alternate routes. Unfortunately, the alternate routes usually won't be able to handle alot of traffic, so the alternate routes will get jammed up as well.
If you get some new device today it would probably give you the edge up for a few years. But just think of what else you could spend that $1000 on.
Around here, we have spent $billions to build new freeways and roads to reduce "Traffic congestion", however these new roads always end up being just as clogged as the old routes.
I've been riding my bike & taking public transit to work for 7 years now, and it's great.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
The Gary-Chicago-Milwaukee traffic web site gives the real-time traffic information from sensors embedded in the highways. It also tells you where the scheduled highway construction is. The only problem is that some highways, like the Illinois tollway system, don't participate.
With that all you need to see the traffic situation is wireless web access. Maybe you could use Wardriving. Ironically, then the worse the traffic backup is, the easier it would be to see the traffic map!
Ever dream you could fly? Get up from the Flight Sim. I Fly
> Solutions for Avoiding Traffic?
/. would be my first suggestion...
Not getting a post on
What do you mean, not THAT type of traffic?
I've noticed that the slow lane (far right) appears to have the optimal flow rate for a highly congested highway.
I used to drive on a major highway daily where the traffic was literally bumper to bumper, stop and go. During rush hour, the fastest route (except HOV lanes) was to stick to the far right, even to stay in the "local lanes" on the right of the jersey wall.
It doesn't make sense to me, but that tactic has shaved hours off my commute time over the years.
Just a thought.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
XM Radio just started broadcasting about 25 channels of 24 hour Traffic. It's great, as my city is one of the ones covered. No affiliation, just a happy user.
Not as drastic as giving up driving or moving closer...
Change your schedule by 15-30 minutes.
Awhile back, I realized that if I left my house at 7:30 I'd get through traffic and land at work at 8:30, BUT if I left my house at 8:15 (45 minutes later) I could get to work by 8:45. That's a half hour cut off my commute each way, or an hour a day, gained by simply letting everybody else fight to get to work first. When the masses are mostly in town and parked, I leave my house. My work hours are only shifted 15 minutes! I arrive at 8:45 instead of 8:30, I save an hour a day on my commute, not to mention the reduced gas consumption, pollution, and aggravation.
Leaving 45 minutes earlier just to sit still on the parkway did seem pretty silly. Am I the only one with a wee bit of flexibility in my schedule?
Operator, give me the number for 911!
Only when you truly understand this that the solution will become evident.
You don't sit in the traffic jam; you are the traffic jam. -- Werner Icking
Also usefull is a website from the chp with traffic incident information (this is what the radio and TV traffic report people are likely reading)
Would be more usefull if I had an easy way to access this information while in the car. But a quick check before heading out on the freeways is always a good idea escpecially as it gets closer to 5pm.
LA has a whole bunch of traffic sensors and these guys use them to build a realtime map of freeway speeds. They cover a few other cities and they also carry all the Caltrans accident reports for cities with no sensors.
The best part is that you can login with your WAP enabled phone and check your predefined routes and see which one is the fastest.
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
On the nights I have chorus rehearsals I drive to work. Because that's after the morning rush hour, I drive to work in the fast line, but I leave a decent space in front of me in case the cars in front get nervous.
In the evening, traffic on the 401 can be bad .. that's when I start in the slow lane while everyone else is battling for space in the fast line, but by the time they're fighting their way off the highway, I'm back in the fast lane again.
Whatever lane I'm in, I always try to leave a few carlengths in front .. what that does is to allow me to absorb the shock waves that propogate back through traffic during rush hour. It looks like I'm being an idiot by the cars behind me, but they probably don't realize that they're going at a constant speed rather than speeding up, braking, speeding up, braking, speeding up, braking. Which one do you think is better for your car and your mileage?
And please, Slower Traffic Keep Right!
You'll need to join the Stonecutters for that.
It's been in production in Europe in a number of countries; I have a TMC-capable navigation system in my car, and traffic jams show up nicely (and I'm rerouted accordingly).
Okay... I'll do the stupid things first, then you shy people follow.
[Zappa]
Its obvious you don't live in Chicago.
They get 20-30 seconds for traffic. We have 16-20 (depending on how you count them) major freeways in the Chicago metro area that most Chicago stations cover. They pick and choose - I'm lucky if I get my Edens report before I have to decide whether to take the highway or not.
I would HAPPILY pay $2.99 a month for this, if it was offered on my carrier.
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
"What other options are out there for someone who doesn't want to fiddle around with tiny web pages on his phone while driving?"
Just sit back, relax and enjoy it. People, especially in the US, seem to develop a habit of making themselves frustrated over traffic. Poor time planning, habitual generalized aggression, assumed impatience for no real reason, whatever, people get irritated over something that getting irritated about only makes worse.
Give yourself plenty of time, take it easy and relax. How often do you get a good excuse to get away from everyone and chill? Use it. Hell, take the slow route.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Problem solved. No need to thank me.
- Every 10 minutes is not on-demand.
- I often listen to WTOP for traffic reports, which are every 10 minutes, but if that doesn't sync up with your bail-out locations (which it rarely does) you may not hear the news in time.
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Doesn't always cover your problem or concern
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(other replies have raised this same point, but
...) even long traffic reports often don't cover what you want and they are very subjective. I almost never get the answer to the question I have every day - "Should I take the bailout which always takes 10-30 minutes of my time or do I stay on the spur which can take between 4-60 minutes?" This question is rarely accurately answered unless there is an accident report.
I'd love to hear a good answer to this question.Traffic jam analysis. FAQ.
This moves the traffic and parking problems from downtown to the high-speed train stations. High speed rail lines need widely spaced stops; the train's high peak speed is wasted each time the train must brake, wait for passengers to board and disembark, and re-accelerate back to cruising speed. This is the same phenomenon that makes a 15MPH bicycle competitive with a 35MPH city bus: the bus stops often, spending less time running at "normal" speed.
So more passengers must travel longer average distances to each widely-spaced train station. The time saving is real only if the downtown area is so crowded that travel by automobile is impractical (as in Manhattan or downtown San Francisco). Thus the rail line originally intended to relieve congestion, in the long term, causes congestion to propogate to outlying areas. Just like Long Island, New Jersey, Connecticut, and the East Bay. The only real solution to congestion is to avoid requiring so many people to travel at the same time, to the same destinations, over such long distances. Sadly, that much-touted benefit of the information age remains a mirage for most of the working population.