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Researchers Apply P2P Principles To Car Traffic

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the traffic-eagle-eye dept.

alphadogg writes to tell us that lessons learned from peer-to-peer networks are being applied to traffic systems in order to prevent jams. "Their Autonet plan would center around ad hoc networks of vehicles and roadside monitoring posts supported by 802.11 technology (the prototype uses 11b). The vehicles would essentially be the 'clients' in such a system and feature graphical user interfaces to pass along information to drivers. They're building the system to be able to handle data on thousands of traffic incidents and road conditions."

8 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. Affects highways, but that's it by EggyToast · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Most of the trouble I've seen, and most of the frustration I encounter, is from badly-timed traffic lights. And many delays are the result of civil service rather than accidents. For example, intersections that have very long red-lights lead to more people trying to speed through the light, causing accidents in the first place.

    This technology may help people avoid problems once they occur, but it won't do squat to affect the root of many problems -- bad traffic planning. Without a good traffic plan, everything made to "fix" it is just a patch on top of a bad base.

    1. Re:Affects highways, but that's it by IAmGarethAdams · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If everyone were using the same algorithm, it would likely compensate by sending you left with e.g. 70% chance and right with 30% chance, depending on the relative capacities of those routes. Of course there wouldn't be any guarantee that the drivers would listen to the recommendation but if too many people clogged up one route that information would soon filter back into the system.

    2. Re:Affects highways, but that's it by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 2, Insightful

      A traffic light engineer is totally limited by the absolute inability of the moron up front to step on the pedal on the right when the light turns green,

      And people have learned to not go immediately when the light turns green, because some asshat is still running the red light on the cross street.

  2. How many times does this need to be said??!! by djupedal · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Put the damn money into comprehensive public transportation!!

    1. Re:How many times does this need to be said??!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      As many times as it takes to figure out slashdot is the wrong place to say it. You need to bug the people in charge of the money.

    2. Re:How many times does this need to be said??!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      No.

      Public transportation will never be as fast as private. As it is now, public transportation is not even as clean (people tend not to take care of things that don't belong to them) or fuel-efficient (how much fuel does it take to run that huge bus carrying 0 to 5 people along its route?) as private. Sure, huge sums of money could fix these problems, but no amount of money will make it as fast as going directly from point A to point B.

      (Posting anonymously to avoid karma death at the hands of the "green" crowd)

    3. Re:How many times does this need to be said??!! by mollymoo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      As many times as it takes to figure out slashdot is the wrong place to say it. You need to bug the people in charge of the money.

      The people in charge of the money are elected officials, who are elected by (among others) the people on Slashdot. One person bugging the people in charge of the money won't do much good, you need lots of people to do the bugging for anything to happen. The way you get lots of people is by raising awareness of the issue with the public by doing things like posting on Slashdot and talking to your friends (who talk to their friends...). Discussing issues is public is how you get public support, which is how you get the people in charge of the money to do what you want.

      --
      Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
  3. zero-infrastructure ftw by j1mmy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    research on this sort of thing has been going on for almost two decades now. the increasing ubiquity of in-car nav systems, cellphones with gps, and other positioning and communications technologies helps to overcome the biggest hurdle: critical mass. this sort of system isn't useful if only a handful of cars have it.

    the other, and more difficult, part of this work is using this data in a way that can provide predictive travel information to drivers before that data becomes outdated. it's one thing to know about congestion on a road 10 minutes from your current location. it's better to know whether it's still going to be congested when you get there. models to do this sort of thing exist, but aren't (yet) fast or reliable enough to be used in real time.

    in urban areas, there's been an increasing push for taxis to be outfitted with gps transponders both as a political move, but also as a research tool and eventual mechanism for supporting real-time traffic data collection. taxis in major cities cover all the big and little streets, all over the place, all the time. they're perfect for fitting into a regional live traffic data collection system.