In 2011, traffic jams cost the United States $121.2 billion, according to a Texas A&M Transportation Institute study.
Of that figure, only $2.7 billion paid for the 2.9 billion gallons of fuel wasted by idling vehicles.
The vast majority of the lost cash is the result of wasted time, as American workers spend their time in traffic, rather than at the office.
Congestion takes its toll of the planet as well: Most cars are at their least efficient in stop and go traffic, and the wasted fuel only makes their impact on the atmosphere worse.
Fortunately for drivers tired of spending hours in the car, national economies that could use a few extra billion dollars, and everyone hoping for a healthier planet, gridlock can be eliminated.
Approaches fall into two basic categories: Detecting traffic, and preventing it. The first camp is the domain of apps and mapping systems, which know which roads are backed up, and help drivers avoid them.
Preventing congestion without keeping people out of cars is all about making driving more efficient, by making cars and traffic control systems smarter. The technology that currently controls most traffic signals is 30-50 years behind what is now available, says Rhythm Engineering's Jenny Kutz.
More modern approaches are gradually being implemented in cities around the country and the world, and offer amazing ways to keep everyone on the road and on the move.
Self-driving cars can make a big difference.
Google and Audi are making a lot of progress in developing autonomous cars, which could make driving safer by removing the potential for human error and poor judgement.
They will also make intersections incredibly efficient, because computer communication could allow cars to flow through a four-way intersection without even stopping.
Human-driven cars should talk to one another, too.
Volvo Trucks participates in SARTRE (Safe Road Trains for the Environment), an EU-financed project that worked for three years on road trains, a new take on driving in which cars communicate with each other and automatically follow a leader vehicle, actively driven by a human.
Road trains offer numerous upsides: Fuel mileage will improve, as vehicles stay at the same speed (acceleration reduces efficiency). Cars can safely drive more closely to one another, and will benefit from lowered wind resistance.
With groups of cars moving in conjunction and at predictable speeds, congestion will improve. And the stress of the daily commute will be alleviated, with time in the car to read or relax.
You can even put traffic lights inside cars.
That's the basic premise of Virtual Traffic Lights (VTL), a project led by Carnegie Mellon's Professor Ozan K. Tonguz, sponsored by the US DOT through the Carnegie Mellon-University of Pennsylvania University Transportation Research Center.
Cars that communicate with one another would control traffic themselves, and physical lights would be replaced by virtual ones, projected on the windshield of each car.
This, Tonguz says, would optimize traffic flow: Intersections that don't have signals now would be better governed, and the average $1,500 in electricity each intersection with lights now uses would go pack into cities' pockets.
Torguz's team is working to create VTL equipment that can be installed in cars already on the road, for about $100.
And while it seems that every car would need the equipment for the system to work, Tonguz told Business Insider that's not the case. A city could designate routes at certain hours where only VTL-equipped cars could drive:
"The benefit experienced by the drivers of the equipped vehicles in reducing their commute time will be a major incentive for the remaining drivers to also install the VTL equipment into their vehicles."
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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