Your very own traffic jam buster

摘要

You are driving home from work and the traffic suddenly backs up. Do you sit it out and hope it will soon clear, or turn off and look for a better route? That decision might soon be made easier by software that estimates the quickest way to go, and delivers its recommendation to your car in real time. New technologies are at last taking on the dreaded traffic jam. The streets and highways of most developed countries are already littered with sensors recording traffic speed and density. And many bus and truck fleets are equipped with GPS units that not only record each vehicle's location but also transmit it back to base. Some of this wealth of information is fed to traffic-monitoring centres, which broadcast congestion updates. But these only warn of major jams.