Stuck in Traffic? IT Can Ease the Commute

Anyone who commutes by car (or has driven to the beach) knows that traffic is getting worse. In May, the Texas Transportation Institute released its 2005 Urban Mobility Report, a study that measures trends in traffic congestion from 1982 to 2003. Today’s average traveler spends 47 hours in rush-hour traffic annually, up from 16 hours in 1982. And those delays come at a cost: In 2003, Americans were out $63.1 billion in time and gasoline due to idling in traffic.

Obvious solutions to alleviate traffic would be increased road capacity, more mass transit and more carpools, but these can be problematic; road construction is expensive, and collective commuting goes against Americans’ independent mind-set. But don’t you fret, there are a number of technology-related initiatives that promise to ease our chronic traffic woes.

At the Center for Infrastructure and Transportation Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), director George List is leading a pilot project called the Advanced Traveler Information System, or ATIS. With ATIS, the speed, location and direction of approximately 200 cars equipped with wireless GPS and pocket PC devices are tracked by a central server at RPI. When these cars travel along U.S. Route 4 and other roadways near Albany, N.Y., their location is plotted on a map. Based on the progress of the cars, the drivers are sent voice-based updates that alert them to impending traffic problems and that recommend alternate routes.

BY MEGAN SANTOSUS

Full Story: http://www.cio.com/archive/071505/tl_transportation.html