Traffic Studied Using Computer-Linked Cars

mprindle writes "Yahoo News has an AP article about a system that links individual cars to analyze traffic patterns, which allows the drivers to avoid traffic jams and accidents. This system is part of the 'smart highway' initiatives. The data from the car is sent to a central server and from that data traffic patterns in a 40 mile radius. According to the article this technology is less expensive than using poll mounted antennas or ground sensors."

Comments

From FTA

[Kagura]

From FTA: Acura's 2005 RL features a navigation system that provides real-time traffic updates for 20 major cities; information is transmitted to the cars via XM radio satellites. Traffic data is aggregated from local police, transportation departments and other sources. The big question: How much are people willing to spend to avoid sitting in traffic? List figures 10 to 15 percent of drivers in a given area would need to participate to make the system effective. The devices bought separately cost about $1,000.

Re:From FTA

[Anonymous Coward]

From FTA? From fucking the article? Damn dude, I knew some Slashdot readers were hardup, but you take it to new heights.

Freudian slip for an internet addict

[fbartho]

lmao. the poster has been online too long... I believe what he was looking for was a pole mounted sensor... Its funny how what you do everyday becomes evidenced in the misspellings you cause. Go with that where you will.

wife alert

[Anonymous Coward]

will this alert me when my wife's car in the vicinity, when my ... um ... "colleague" ... is with me in the backseat ...

Let's think about this for a second...

[pummer]

If EVERYONE has a computer in their car to help them avoid traffic jams, then it would be absolutely pointless. The traffic would become more widely distributed, sure, but it'd shift away from highways that are designed to hold traffic, and into residential areas that aren't. You're going to have traffic somewhere, so whether it's on the highway or on another road is immaterial. Thus, these computers are pointless for anything more than data-gathering.

Re:Let's think about this for a second...

[CrazyJim1]

If everyone had computers in their cars to analyze traffic, then another computer could do a mapsearch and find the quickest way home. This would speed up everyone's journey home. It'd speed up the user using the computer to get home, and it'd speed up the commuter trying the congested lane too.

And I'm not even talking the convincing evidence that could be taken to widen roads or make new roads.

Re:Let's think about this for a second...

[MBCook]

Nope. That won't be true for a few reasons.

• First is that everyone will never have this technology. There will always be a few without it. But that's a minor reason.
• Not everyone will follow the system's advice at all times.
• As people follow the advice and go to side streets, the severity of the origional backup will decrease so that fewer people will bother to avoid it.
• Not everyone CAN avoid the problem. There is no way for me to get from my house to the local college without traveling on the highway near my house. To avoid traveling that highway would be 30+ minute detour. Short of actually closing the road, it is usually better for me to just drive through it.
• People will go elsewhere. If I'm planning to go to spot A for one errand and find out there is a traffic jam there, I'll go to spot B for a different errand and avoid that whole area. I may avoid it for the day (errand at A was unimportant), or just put it off 'till later (say after C and D) at which time the traffic may have subsided, and I may be in a position where instead of having to drive north to my destination through the traffic, I now must drive east so the traffic jam wouldn't be in my way.
• Last is there is more than one alternate route. As the traffic jam happens, people will turn off who are near there because the system tells them too. As those streets start to slow, the system will warn people who get close to take different alternate routes avoiding both problems. And as the do that, the origional will clear up, leading me back to my first point.

I don't think it would be a problem. I think it would help. Kansas City's Scout System provides simple info on some routes (big accident at X and Y, avoid) so that people can avoid it, and it does help. Plus because the message is on many signs (instead of right before the problem) you can avoid the problem from 1 mile away or 20.

Re:Let's think about this for a second...

[shawb]

It really isn't immaterial. Treating traffic flow as a fluid dynamics problem, it becomes apparent that reducing the flow of traffic will untangle traffic snarls, improving the flow. Basically, the more cars try to jam into a bottleneck, the slower traffic becomes, the slower it becomes, the worse the bottleneck becomes, untill traffic comes to a standstill with people still trying to jam themselves in. Sort of like early in rush hour, traffic flow is generally very heavy, but quick. Somebody having to hit their brakes, due to tailgating, being cut off, or not let into a lane causes small ripples of congestion which add up to the point that traffic flow comes to a standstill or at least a major slowdown. Appropriately reducing traffic flow at key points could eliminate or at least reduce congestion, without the costs (financial, social and environmental) of adding more lanes of concrete.

Although teaching people how to drive and to actually use lanes appropriately would probably do more than any technological gizmo that we could create at this point.

I can see it now...

[slakdrgn]

*puts tinfoil cap on head*

They'll tout the lower the cost of the 'system' so they can easier monitor our location, driving habits and speed. When in reality, they are artificially lowering the cost of the system just for those benifits.

*takes off tinfoil cap*

Doubt it'll ever happen in my lifetime (with all the whisle blowers and such out there) but still.

That's all well and good...

[RyanFenton]

But how long until we can get some level of computer-controlled vehicles? Once the technology has matured a bit, I'd MUCH rather trust a reasonably engineered computerized system than the thousands of other drivers around me on my way about town. Not that I shouldn't be able to turn it off, but I think the concept would really grow once we switched the carpool lane to the auto-drive lane, and manual drivers learn to stay clear of the 80+mph traffic that flows on it.

Ryan Fenton

Re:That's all well and good...

[MBCook]

That option to turn it off is the problem, as I see it.

• If every car on the road is human controlled, things are fine (as we have it today).
• If every car on the road is computer controlled, things are fine (computer knows what's happening)
• If only some cars (possibly as few as one) are controlled by humans, things are MUCH more complex than if computers controll everything.

It is this kind of thing that will make switiching over very tough. My guess it there will be special lanes at first (not unlike the carpool lane, speedpass lanes) that you drive into manually (or into an "entrence zone") and press a button and let the car take you in, and it takes you out (into an "exit zone") where the car puts you back into controll and you drive the rest of the way.

As things progress, there are more and more of these lanes, and fewer and fewer "normal" lanes until you only have these lanes on highways and such. Then people only drive on streets (which would be safer anyways, no 80+ mphs speeds). From here you can make specific streets (the largest ones, one way streets, whatever) computer controlled only. Then you expand that untill you get to where cars are computer controlled only everwhere.

All this would take years, to weed out the "normal" cars as people bought cars that had these functions, and that could be speed up by governement encouragement (tax breaks on buying them/gas/licenses/incentives/etc) and such.

It will probably happen in our lifetimes (unless someone invents a transporter or an aircar or something that is computer driven from the start and those quickly supplant the car as the main mode of transportation). Should be interesting to watch.

Alternate Roads

[Adrilla]

I find that in the cities where i've lived (San Diego, Atlanta), that even when the highways are gridlocked, there really aren't viable alternatives on surface streets. They're either too far off the route or they're also crowded. So even with a system like this, I don't know that the alternate routes would be that much better a solution, you're still spending close to the same amount of time on the road. It's either gridlocked on the highway or you're gridlocked on the city streets. Maybe better mass transit is the answer.

Nothing more than a kludge to a broken system

[MarkRose]

It's funny how we spend so much time on alleviating traffic concerns, when it would be simpler to just abandon the car. It's to the point where it's often twice as fast and cheap to use public transport. When I'm in a large city, I park my car at a terminal, hop the train, and go. Not only do I not have to worry about traffic and the associated stress, I also buy back all the time I'd waste behind the wheel to catch up on reading and paperwork. And while using public transport can sometimes mean walking a block or two, it's no worse than finding a parking spot. Really, why, in North America, are we so fixated on the automobile for personal transport?

Re:But..

[HairyCanary]

What you just described is optimal utilization of all available routes. That means no traffic jams at all, anywhere (unless there just is no more capacity anywhere at all, in which case you have gridlock).