Reducing traffic congestion, remotely
At the Intelligent Transportation Systems World Congress last week, MIT researchers received one of the best-paper awards for a new system, dubbed RoadRunner, that uses GPS-style turn-by-turn directions to route drivers around congested roadways. In simulations using data supplied by Singapore’s Land Transit Authority, the researchers compared their system to one currently in use in Singapore, which charges drivers with dashboard-mounted transponders a toll for entering congested areas. The Singapore system gauges drivers’ locations with radio transmitters mounted on dozens of gantries scattered around the city, like the gantries used in many U.S. wireless toll systems. RoadRunner, by contrast, uses only handheld devices clipped to cars’ dashboards. Nonetheless, in the simulations, it yielded an 8 percent increase in average car speed during periods of peak congestion. Moreover, for purposes of comparison, the MIT researchers restricted themselves to road-access patterns dictated by Singapore’s existing toll system. Modifying those patterns — encouraging or discouraging the...