The Trade-Off: Why we'll solve traffic jams with information, not more roads
Filed under: Technology, Columns, Economy, IBM, Google , Apple
Sooner or later, politicians will realize that roads are becoming a terrible way to deal with traffic.This is top of mind, because Republican Bob McDonnell just won the Virginia governor's race in part by promising to build roads to unsnarl traffic in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., where earthworms move faster than cars on the Beltway. "Traffic congestion is a quality-of-life, economic development, and environmental issue," McDonnell said during his campaign. He wants to spend $17.5 billion on roads.
Then on Tuesday, Canada released a study showing that traffic in Toronto costs the country $3 billion a year in lost productivity.
The problem is that while everybody hates traffic, nobody really wants roads, either. People want the means to get from one place to another. Ever since cars took over the world, roads have been a necessary evil -- but roads, and especially highways, offer a terrible trade-off. They are terrifically inconvenient: They cost billions of dollars, disrupt whole cities, and leave swaths of concrete where trees or neighborhoods used to be.
The quality of the experience of a new road for its users -- how good or fast it makes a car trip -- might make up for the inconvenience, but probably not for long. New roads have a habit of drawing new office buildings and housing developments -- and so lots and lots of new traffic, until the new roads are as bad as the old roads.
So roads aren't usually an easy enough solution, or a good enough solution, to make most people happy. We tolerate roads. Which means there must be better options.
And one is finally emerging. It involves looking at traffic as an information problem. Considering the cost and disruption of building a road, this might be the cheapest, easiest, most convenient solution to traffic.
iPhone users already got a simple early glimpse at how information can solve traffic problems. You can use an Apple (AAPL) iPhone's GPS and a Google (GOOG) Map to track your route. The Google Map app can overlay current traffic information. Roads where traffic is moving show up green; jams show up red. Drivers can see that the road they'll get to in 20 minutes is clogged and head for another route.
That information helps iPhone users avoid traffic, but for now, this generally only benefits iPhone users. If all drivers had that kind of information all the time, lots of people would take different routes, or delay a trip to avoid a traffic jam -- and that alone could lessen, or even eliminate, traffic jams.
But the problem with iPhone traffic information is that it only shows the traffic right now. It can't predict how the traffic will be when you get where you're going. If a road normally is clear at 4:30 p.m. but gets jammed with rush-hour traffic at 5 p.m., the iPhone-GPS-Google Maps combination doesn't understand that. Yet you don't want to look and see a "green" road at 4:30, only to hit traffic at 5.
A bunch of technologies are converging to make traffic technology more predictive. Cities such as Stockholm and Singapore are putting in sensors that can track every car on every road and feed that data back to IBM (IBM)-built computer systems. At first, that's for charging tolls on downtown roads at peak traffic times. But the data will let a city learn its traffic patterns. New kinds of analytic software from companies like TIBCO (TIBX) will be able to take those patterns and make predictions about the regular ebb and flow of traffic. Overlay other information about events in the city, and the system could also predict traffic during irregular events, like a major sporting event downtown.
A lot of cities, including New York and San Francisco, are having debates about installing these traffic-information systems. So far, the debates center on whether it's a good idea to charge tolls to use city streets. The better debate would be whether traffic information systems would be the most convenient way to help people get from one place to another.
Looking at IBM's emerging systems, the technology for predicting traffic is probably a few years away from being perfected. But at some point, spending a couple hundred million dollars on technology might be a better trade-off than pouring tens of billions into concrete.
Kevin Maney is the author of Trade-Off: Why Some Things Catch On, and Others Don't (Broadway Books, 2009).
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
11-11-2009 @ 9:38PM
JD said...
Sure there are plenty of roads in most places, but educating people on how to stop behaving like sheep wouldn't hurt either
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11-14-2009 @ 5:55AM
merletcornpone said...
It appears they are confusing the effects of a growing population and the associated development with the shortcomings of road construction and design. They also presume there are functional alternatives to clogged roads, which is not necessarily the case, often not the case.
I don't want to be on any road with a majority of drivers looking at cell phones for advice in traffic.
11-11-2009 @ 10:41PM
NM said...
New technology to provide drivers broader information about road congestion only treats the symptoms of the problem. Simply stated, roadways are overused because they are generally an unpriced commodity. Here in this most capitalist country our highways are Soviet breadlines. By pricing use of roadways--by time of day and type of facility--just like we price other goods and services (including other transportation services, like transit, rail, and air service), drivers would have greater incentive to moderate their use of public infrastructure. Only pricing, coupled with the information technology that the author suggests, has the potential to revolutionize auto mobility.
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11-13-2009 @ 11:59PM
red said...
so i can charge a toll to anyone who passes my house?....hmmmm... i like that, it might help me recoup the taxes i alresdy paid to drive on the damn road in the first place...... moron
11-11-2009 @ 11:23PM
rick said...
THE REAL PROBLEM HERE IS THAT 75% OF THE MORONS ON THE ROAD CAN'T DRIVE...DON'T KNOW WHAT THE LEFT LANE IS FOR,OR HOW TO DRIVE IN IT...AND HOW MANY PEOPLE HONESTLY CAN'T ENTER A MAJOR HIGHWAY,OR EXIT A MAJOR HIGHWAY...I COUNT HOW MANY BRAKE LITES I SEE IN THE MORNING ON A MAJOR HIGHWAY,WHEN NO ONE IS IN FRONT OF THESE PEOPLE FOR 50 YARDS...WHAT IS UP PEOPLE....TRAFFIC JAMS ARE CAUSED EVERYDAY , BYE PEOPLE WHO JUST CAN'T DRIVE FOR CRAP....WE NEED TO EDUCATE PEOPLE BETTER,AND KEEP THOSE WHO CAN'T DRIVE OFF THE ROADS....ITS UNBELIEVABLE HOW MANY PEOPLE CAN'T DRIVE....
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11-12-2009 @ 12:37AM
Bill said...
There are traffic jams and accidents because of dumb and stupid drivers not because of roads or the ammount of traffic. They are out there, texting, reading using cell phones and PCs while they are driving. Rubbernecking is one of my favorite things to squawk about. I just don't believe what I see sometims. A car is broke down by the side of the road all of the people in the car are inside and quite calm and the people driving by are slowing down and looking to see what is happening and nothing is happening. Sheesh.
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11-12-2009 @ 12:23AM
doug said...
The building of new roads is not the answer. More info for drivers is not the answer. The one and only way that traffic will flow smoothly is when technology evolves to the point where the only input from a human in a transportation vehicle will be for the human to input the destination and a completely computer controlled traffic network will pick the route and velocity of the transportation vehicle. People will have no input as to the speed or direction the network chooses. Traffic today consist of many people headed to the same location all at different speed and all having a different idea on the best way to arrive at the same destination. As long as individuals determine the actions of the vehicle there will never be a smooth flow of traffic.
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11-13-2009 @ 11:58PM
red said...
thank god for human inter-action...personally i dont like vanilla
11-12-2009 @ 2:44AM
Warren said...
It won't help to have the information. Since we keep building housing developements, we will keep having more and more cars on the road.
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11-12-2009 @ 4:43AM
hotrodqd said...
I got this one all I need is an investor and/or bill gates !!!
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11-12-2009 @ 5:39AM
MyKisa said...
.....with the added growth of legal and illegal immigrants, the need for more and more will become necessary.....course with less and less jobs to go to....
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11-13-2009 @ 8:31PM
Jim Fay said...
Traffic lights should be far more responsive to current events. Sensors should show when all cars have traveled through the green light and then turn it red if others are waiting on the right or left for the light to change. More flashing intersections should be established with sensors to show where the demand and backup is. This could automatically change a flashing red to a flashing yellow, if that direction was backing up. It could work in reverse to show the opposite. We have satellites that help me find my car. We should be able to take that technology to help get me home.
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11-13-2009 @ 9:59PM
oldsvistacruiser said...
You're so right! As a professional driver, I have noticed that the lights here in the Philadelphia suburbs need a major overhaul. Here in my hometown, a major road (PA 563) has two lights that treat 563 as the SIDE street! I had to sit through the entire TIMED red light cycle at 5:25 AM this morning - as NO traffic whatsoever passed through the side street. The other traffic light serves a road that USED to be U.S. 309 (now PA 309) - 40 years ago, but only turns green for 563 when there is traffic waiting.
11-13-2009 @ 8:38PM
Todd said...
We should not be charged for using a city street that our taxes already pay for.
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11-13-2009 @ 8:54PM
mezl said...
people who cannot drive should be permanently banned from driving. i my self am not a good driver- i know this. so i don't drive any more. the last thing i want to do is cause an accident, kill some one else or kill my self. i am just not "sharp" when it comes to whizzing along at 80 miles an hour and looking at every traffic sign posted along the way. and then you have to look out for other cars, pedestrians, etc., not to mention mufflers or other car parts sitting in the middle of a traffic lane. i don't know how people do it, i really don't.
driving is actually a very complex task in and of itself. it's just amazing how the brain can function to keep track of every piece of information the eyes see while going 80 miles or more an hour.
people who drive drunk or stoned should have their licenses permanently revoked, people who are just not "sharp" should not be allowed to drive. people who cause accidents should never be allowed to drive again either. and no one should ever drive when mad or upset. this engenders careless or reckless driving which can affect another driver. that would be the solution. the less unsafe drivers the better. and may be laying out roads in a more logical fashion rather than some crazy-quilt type pattern would help too. some road systems are just too confusing.
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11-13-2009 @ 9:22PM
SHAE said...
The problem is not going to be fixed by iphone or more roads. Where I live, 45 miles north of Houston, our traffic problems could be solved by a commuter bus route or commuter trains. We don't have such a thing, except for the downtown metro that runs only downtown for the medical center. There is one bus route that runs only Mon-Fri and only 9-5, and when people head downtown for the rodeo or a concert, forget it.
The bus and/or train commute could be enforced by ticketing people with only one person in the car.
Jmi
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11-13-2009 @ 9:55PM
Phil said...
Why is it that we go through an entire course to learn how to drive, study a driver's manual to pass a written test, and not one part of the entire process is dedicated to learning how to merge?
If improper merging (either hesitating or refusing to take turns) were to be penalized the way that driving while talking on the phone is, there would be so much less traffic for us to deal with. How many times have you expected to see an accident as a reason for a log jamb only to find that it was merely two lanes having to merge into one? Its not just the people who have to be first and don't allow anyone to go before them, its also those who are to hesitant to move smoothly when its their turn.
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11-13-2009 @ 10:05PM
oldsvistacruiser said...
I forgot to mention - the road that used to be US 309 was bypassed by the PA 309 freeway in 1969, about the same time that the US route was decommissioned and became a state route. Bethlehem Pike is merely a side street today and carries no state designation.
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11-13-2009 @ 10:17PM
John S said...
As an ex trucker, I know first hand how bad this situation is. Better driver education is the first point. Don't let family members teach people how to drive. Make Driver's Ed manditory to get a license. Syncronize traffic signals, and set them for the speed limit. Get the pokey Joes out of the left lane. Make that lane a higher minimum speed.
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11-14-2009 @ 12:03AM
Lora said...
Traffic issues will ease and then end when the price of gasoline rises beyond being an affordable expense. Traffic is created by suburbs...people living a long way away from where they work. As gas and oil supplies begin to decline and the price of petro fuels increase, folks will start moving closer into metropolitan hubs and use high-volume public transportation to get to and from work.
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