Traffic jams, a well-known problem and daily frustration for a lot of people in the world. It will become dramatically worse and more widespread without big changes in how people and products get around. Fortunately there are new innovative technologies that can bring changes in order to solve this problem, which is called smart mobility. Smart mobility is all about information sharing in traffic to enable an intelligent infrastructure among all its users. It basically means adding intelligence to the world of traffic and transportation. (ITS infographic, 2015) In this blog three innovative technologies are shortly exposed, arranged from most to less likely to solve the traffic jam problem in the short term.
Mobile applications
By making quick traffic data available and offering private services, traffic smartphone applications can suggest people what to do on the road. It can for example suggest the most efficient route from A to B, adjusting along the way based on real-time speed and traffic information from other users. (Lowy and Pritchard, 2015) These applications can provide a better traffic flow.
Smart Cars
Vehicles are becoming smarter these days. Some cars on the road are already equipped with technology that let them interact with the surrounding environment of the car. Smart cars go even further, and can communicate with other smart cars on the road. Information about speed, direction, whether someone is breaking or an accident happened ahead, are all examples of information that is shared among these cars and on which the car can react. (Lowy and Pritchard, 2015) The ultimate smart car won’t even need a driver. These cars are called autonomous or self-driving cars and can ensure that roads are used way more efficient.
Drones
The performance of drones is rapidly increasing and in several industries they are already testing with drones to change the way of doing business. Amazon for example is testing with drone delivery and in Dubai they are testing with drone taxis. (Oswald, 2017) (Clemence, 2017) Both of these implementations could significantly decrease the amount of vehicles on the roads. Moreover, drones can also replace cars or be used in multiple other ways in order to solve the traffic jam problem.
Which technology will succeed according to you in order to solve traffic jams? Is there a singular solution for the problem or are there multiple? And what other innovative technologies can you come up with that can contribute to solve this problem? Let me know in a comment below.
Video of drone taxi in Dubai:
References:
- Clemence, S. (2017, Sept). Dubai stages first public test of volocoptor drone taxi. Accessed on the 17th of October 2017 on: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-26/dubai-stages-first-public-test-of-volocoptor-drone-taxi
- ITS Infographic Behind the scenes (2015). https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/publicaties/2015/12/02/its-infographic-behind-the-scenes
- Lowy, J. and Pritchard, J. (2015, Jun). Traffic in the US is going to get worse – but things are changing. Accessed on the 17th of October 2017 on: http://www.businessinsider.com/5-ways-to-solve-the-nations-worsening-traffic-problem-2015-6?international=true&r=US&IR=T
- Oswald, E. (2017, May). Here’s everything you need to know about Amazon’s drone delivery project, Prime Air. Accessed on the 17th of October 2017 on: https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/amazon-prime-air-delivery-drones-history-progress/
Hi Rogier, it was really fun to read your blog!
In my view, all three innovative technologies you’ve mentioned would contribute to solve the traffic jam problem to certain extent. However, they will become effective in different timeframes.
Short-termly speaking, real-time mobile tracking application is definitely the most cost-effective way. There are already a few well-developed apps helping users avoid terrible traffic. For instance, traffic on Google Maps can clearly show the path of the eclipse. Another example could be Waze, one of the fastest growing mobile app for evading traffic jams worldwide.
Long-termly speaking, I think smart car and drone will take over. Like you mentioned, ultimate smart car can optimize the ground traffic. On the other hand, drone can optimize the air traffic. Together with ground and air traffic optimisation, a way better society can be achieved. Hence, for the benefits in the long run, I will choose the combination of the smart car and drone.
Sources:
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/21/google-maps-shows-traffic-jams-along-path-of-eclipse.html
https://www.waze.com
Hi Rogier,
Nice article! The part about smart cars exchanging information with each others makes me wondering how they regulate this? Are smart cars from different providers able to exchange information with each other? If yes, how do they make sure that abuse these informations they extract from the customers’ cars of their competitors? How do consumers feel about their information being used by both parties (or even more)?
Apart from these questions, it sounds really cool to own a self-driving car. Self-driving car makes use of available environmental and traffic data to constantly analyse their current position. At the same time, these self-driving car will also be providing their own data back to the network. Imagine that there are only self-driving cars on the road, it will be only about data!
Cheers,
Jessica
Hi Rogier,
Thanks for posting about this topic. It is definitely interesting to see how different initiatives try to solve one of the greatest frustrations of many people (of which I am definitely one).
I agree that all of these initiatives may help to reduce traffic jams in some degree. However, I think this reduction may only be marginal, as the root problem of traffic jams is that people use the same road at the same time. To make matters worse, I argue that this is a very difficult issue to influence as many people are obliged to be present at their job etc.
Mobile applications may offer alternatives, but I think that these alternatives may not always suit the users’ needs as an alternative mostly takes longer than the initial route. In addition, traffic jams during rush hour can pop up in an instance, which may make it impossible for many passengers to take an alternative route. Again, I speak out of personal experience when using Google Maps (which offers similar functionality).
I think Smart Cars can definitely help in the sense that traffic jams are generally created through alternating speeds and high road occupance. Guiding and perhaps even synchronizing different cars in order to maintain the optimal speed for the road (thereby enhancing time certainty of taking a specific route) may definitely help control traffic jams in this sense. Again, however, I think this initiative does not tackle the core problem of traffic jams sufficiently.
Thirdly, I argue that drones only target specific road users. On the short term this might be deliveries (for which I think it is a very suitable alternative) and on the long term passengers. For passengers a taxi may still be more expensive than taking your own car and buying your own drone for transportation might require a whole different set of regulations to prevent air traffic accidents.
To conclude my comment, I think IT should focus on tackling the core problem of traffic jams: passenger behavior. Flexible working spots and working from home are already being widely used. But I think IT and business developers should focus more on what drives people to behave in this inefficient transportation behavior.
Please let me know how you think about this?