Traffic Sim Predicts Jams Before They Happen

Via_Patrino writes "The New Scientist reports that: A traffic simulation system is helping drivers by predicting jams up to an hour before they happen. Traffic flow can be divided into three categories: freely flowing, jammed, and an intermediate state called synchronised flow in which dense traffic moves in unison. Physicists at University of Duisburg-Essen have developed 'the first model to reproduce all known traffic states.' Predicted conditions are displayed on the official website, and more than 90 per cent of the time, traffic density is predicted correctly."

Comments

Re:What if people start using it?

[mphase]

Good point. It only applies if a large portion of the potential traffic was aware of the prediction but still a good point. It's not a matter of being a right or wrong prediciton though, it's a matter or decreasing traffic. If it makes it so people get stuck in traffic less than it is a success. The statistic of being "right" or "wrong" in its prediciton is pointless. Though obviously if every damn person was aware of it the predicted traffic would become the perfect driving conditions because everyone would avoid that area. So then people would start to purposefuly drive in the areas the system said would have heavy traffic, knowing that everyone else would avoid it. But then because so many people did that there would be traffic and so people would learn to avoid the areas...repeat until you come to the topic of a land war in China.

Here's the algorithm they use:

[phandel]

I believe the algorithm was leaked a few days ago:

if ((time == 8am-ish) || (time == 5pm-ish))
double jam =1; // double jam sandwich

if (city == LA)
long long jam = 2^64;