Traffic: In Search Of A Technological Solution

Traffic is the perennial bane of the motorist, costing countless hours of lost time and turning the dream of the open road into a nightmare of traffic jams snaking as far as the eye can see. And in a world with an increasingly urban population (the global urban population increased from 34% to 54% between 1960 and 2014 according to the WHO) this issue is not going to resolve itself.

This is where technology comes in.

While traditional solutions to traffic management – pedestrianised zones, bus lanes, car free days – have had a positive impact, technologists are coming to realise that data has huge potential when it comes to freeing up our roads. 'Smart city' has become a buzz phrase in recent years, bundling together technologies as diverse as energy infrastructure, cloud services and smart phones. With regard to traffic however, the potential really does exist to harness the data being generated and gathered by millions of journeys every day, and use that data to