While modern in car satnav systems can draw on real-time traffic congestion data and suggest alternative routes for drivers to avoid high traffic areas, Honda has taken a different approach to try and minimize the potential for traffic jams. The company has developed new technology designed to detect whether a person’s driving is likely to create traffic jams and encourage them to drive in such a way as to keep traffic flowing.
No doubt you’ve been forced to come to a stop in freeway traffic for no apparent reason. There’s been no accident, no lane closure, no dog on the road, but all of a sudden traffic comes to a complete standstill before moving off again. This stop-start freeway driving is pretty commonplace and is frustrating for those behind the wheel. It also increases travel time, the chance of rear-end accidents, and fuel consumption.
In 2007, research at the University of Exeter showed such traffic jams weren’t necessarily caused by heavy traffic alone, but by a “backward traveling wave” set off by a driver slowing down, causing the car behind to slow further, and the car behind that to slow yet further, and so on, resulting in a so-called “accordion effect” until somewhere down the line traffic comes to a complete standstill.
Now Honda has developed a world first technology that can detect whether the driving patterns of a vehicle are likely to lead to this kind of traffic congestion and suggests ways to avoid it. The system monitors the driver’s acceleration and deceleration patterns and, if it determines they have the potential to create a traffic jam, it encourages smoother driving via a color-coded display.
Honda says the system can be further improved by connecting it to cloud servers. This allows a vehicle’s Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) system to automatically activate at the right time to sync with the driving patterns of vehicles located further up the road and maintain a constant distance between them.
Honda conducted testing of the system in conjunction with the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Tokyo. Tests carried out without cloud connectivity and ACC resulted in an increase in the average speed of vehicles by around seven percent and improved fuel efficiency of trailing vehicles by around three percent. Adding the cloud and ACC to the mix improved the figures to 23 percent and eight percent, respectively.
As part of its efforts to bring the technology to market, Honda will conduct the first public-road testing of the system this year, beginning in Italy in May and Indonesia in July.
Source: Honda
Oh, and learn about ZIPPER MERGE... the best thing for easing congestion in lane reductions. Google .
What's funny is seeing how people slaloming (and thus slowing down aggregate traffic) manage to gain a big 20 yards over the rest of us. 20 yards for endangering a dozen people as you swerve in front and cut them off, and then you slow down to a stop anyway...because of some other jerks that were slaloming a few blocks ahead.
Drivers need to use their rear view mirrors a little too.
I usually drive at about the speed limit, with no slaloming. Sometimes (usually once or twice per trip to the city) I'll see another driver weaving in and out, and then have to pull up at a red light. If they used their rear view mirror they'd probably see me sitting right behind them, although they passed me a couple of kilometres back.
What really gives me a good chuckle is when they've stopped at the lights and there's an empty lane beside them, which I drive in. More often than not, I'll catch the light changing to green as I'm approaching, and I don't have to slow down, thereby avoiding the acceleration from a halt, and these weavers find themselves way behind, and sometimes so far they catch the next red light which was green for me.
By speeding they are actually arriving at their destination later than they would if they'd driven at the speed limit. I call it speeding slowly.
It's sad that instead of limiting the privilege to drive on our public roads to intelligent motorists, we have to depend on manufacturers to come up with yet another way to make up for the shortcomings of the idiotic.
Don't even have to ticket them, just tell them they get to go to "The Island"
All those traffic cams must have some useful function, like identifying people who have no business being in heavy traffic.