Intelligent transportation systems

The number of advances in smart-mobility in the car industry is increasing rapidly - this appears to be an area of significant growth - and will no doubt transform 'life on the road' in the future.

First, the paper USA Today looks at the technology of cars communicating with each other in 'Cars soon may 'talk' to roads, each other':

"Intelligent transportation also offers a lucrative side benefit: the sharing of information that could ease traffic congestion,which wasted an estimated 2.3 billion gallons of gasoline in 2003,according to a Texas Transportation Institute estimate.Traffic jam data could be gathered from the electronic messages of cars themselves, not just from sensors in roadways".

Secondly, an article in the IHT - 'Tracking phones for traffic reports' - examines how tracking mobile phones in the car can show patterns of traffic flows:

"These new traffic systems can monitor several hundred thousand cellphones at once.The phones need only be turned on,not in use.And sophisticated software now makes it possible to discern whether a signal is coming from,say,a moving car or a pedestrian.State officials say the systems will monitor large clusters of phones,not individual phones,and the benefits could be substantial.By providing a constantly updated picture of traffic flow across thousands of miles of highways,they argue,cellphone tracking can help transportation agencies spot congestion and divert drivers by issuing alerts by radio or on electronic road signs".

Thanks Smart mobs!