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Boston Using IBM Engineers To Solve Traffic Problems

Posted by samzenpus on from the no-parking dept.

vu1986 writes "Boston won the opportunity to pick the brains of six IBM engineers — including one from Tokyo — who flew in to check out its traffic situation and figure out a way to consolidate, analyze and use existing traffic data feeds as well as new data sources including (of course) Twitter feeds, to ease the city's notorious traffic jams."

3 of 178 comments (clear)

  1. Tweaks to the cultural problem by A+beautiful+mind · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All the IBM engineers will do is decrease the issue of traffic by a couple of percent, maybe raise efficiency by 10-20% here and there, but the real issue is cultural. Cars suck for a dense urban environment, you need people on bikes, carpooling and the most important thing: good public transportation.

    Good public transportation means though forcing cars out from city centers by creating bus lanes, creating tram lines on previously car-only roads, building enough parking space at the edge of the city where people could switch over to public transport, etc.

    --
    It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
    Be yourself no matter what they say
    1. Re:Tweaks to the cultural problem by illogict · · Score: 5, Informative

      Wait, what? There's been no 1st class in Paris metro since 1991.

  2. what if you dug a gigantic tunnell... by decora · · Score: 5, Funny

    right under the city? it would probably solve those traffic problems for good! also, it wouldn't cost that much, and it wouldn't take that long.