Could Technology Companies Solve Traffic Congestion? (bloomberg.com)

As the Indian city of Bangalore "grapples with inadequate roads, unprecedented growth and overpopulation," can technology companies find a solution? randomErr writes: Tech giants and startups are turning their attention to a common enemy: the Indian city's infernal traffic congestion. Commutes that can take hours have inspired Gridlock Hackathon for technology workers to find solutions to the snarled roads that cost the economy billions of dollars. While the prize totals a mere $5,500, it's attracting teams from global giants Microsoft Corp., Google and Amazon.com. Inc. to local startups including Ola.
Bloomberg reports that the ideas "range from using artificial intelligence and big data on traffic flows to true moonshots, such as flying cars... Other entries suggested including Internet of Things-powered road dividers that change orientation to handle changing situations. There is also a proposal for a reporting system that tracks vehicles that don't conform to the road rules..." And one hackathon official says a team "suggested building smart roads underneath the city and another has sent in detailed drawings of flying cars." Any more bright ideas -- and more importantly, do any of these solutions really have a chance of succeeding?

Comments

Let AI drive the cars

[Skapare]

Let AI drive the cars. "self-driving" cars follow the road rules and cooperate better. Maybe tracking via WAZE can help in the interim.

Singapore Shows the Way

[BBCWatcher]

Singapore sets strict quotas on total vehicles, by type, using a simple auction system. So let's suppose the quota is capped at one million vehicles of all types. Private cars might represent 600,000 of that total. (These numbers are approximately correct for Singapore.) If you want to buy a car, you have to get a Certificate of Entitlement (CoE), good for 10 years. As a car comes off the road and is scrapped or exported, its CoE is returned to the public pool and auctioned. The highest bidders win. Currently (mid 2017) a CoE is fetching about US$35,000. That's not the car or anything that goes with it. It's merely the cost of a 10 year license to place a new car on the road. You also have to buy, register (with ample tax), insure, park, and fuel the car, and that costs money, too. You also must have an electronic toll device, and congested areas (primarily the central business district) have variable tolls to enter. If you get out of line the penalties are severe, and you cannot bribe your way out of such problems.

Do those basic things (a strict overall cap on the vehicle population at an appropriate level, and variable electronic tolling for the areas most prone to congestion), and you have eliminated traffic problems. Public buses can then run on reliable schedules, road construction doesn't cause too much agony, and there's an excellent revenue source for both.

This problem is well solved if people want it solved. Just copy Singapore.

Re:Singapore Shows the Way

[ThosLives]

That's definitely a solution, but I would replace the highest-bidder-wins auction with a certifiably random selection. That way you don't have a systemic bias against the poor.

Nope, it would not work.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Gases expand fill the available volume. Work expands to fill the available time. Traffic expands to fill available capacity.

Tech companies would worsen the problem. They will make commute time more predictable and adjust the flow, divert in real time to reduce congestion. All this will lead to more effective road capacity. All the secondary roads that carry less traffic will be used as load balancers and fill up with traffic. All this will make people realize they can live even farther away from the city and supersize their McMansions. In the end there will be more vehicles on the road.

Real solution is allow market to determine the cost of commute. A contested valuable resource, priced at below market levels, unresponsive to rising demand will always lead to wasteful usage. Water and road access are the most heavily underpriced government owned resource. Any private company would have raised the price of accessing the prime working areas, and raised the prices over time. Businesses would respond by moving out, spreading out, commuters would pay the true cost of access to downtown and business districts and consider rational alternatives.

While taking advantage of free road access to business districts, the very same car commuters fight tooth and nail any subsidy to public transportation.