I know you hate getting stuck in traffc. The average American spends about $80 a year for gasoline wasted idling in traffic jams. All together, that's about 2.9 billion gallons of fuel wasted. Unfortunately, widening roads doesn't seem to help. Paving more of the planet, it turns out, isn't the solution.

But using the already-paved portions a bit more intelligently could have humongous impacts. Which is where INRIX comes in.

They have just announced that they are creating a device that will allow for:

1. Real-time traffic data display
2. GPS route-finding based on traffic data for over 800,000 miles of road
3. Real-time traffic data gathering

Now, so far, only one of those things is being done. Based on traffic databases throughout the country, some GPS units (generally using INRIX's technology) can already tell you if you're going to hit bad traffic soon.

But there are two new components to this equation that may make traffic jams all-but obsolete. First, INRIX is using a new kind of algorithm that takes all of their traffic-data and provides the fastest route to your destination based on current traffic conditions and traffic conditions for similar days.

And second, INRIX will be installing it's system in hundreds of thousands of new cars made by one of the top three car manufacturers (either GM, Toyota or Ford) and those units will tellin INRIX's computers where they are and how fast they are going. So, basically, as soon as one INRIX enabled car slows down, every other INRIX enabled car will know that there is a traffic jam.

Theoretically, only one person will have to be caught in the traffic jam before everyone else in the world knows about it.

There are obviously some privacy implications here, which I intend to ask INRIX's CEO about in an upcomming interview. If folks have other questions about the technology, please offer them up in the comments, and I'll ask about them.

But if we could save those 2.9 billion gallons of fuel we waste every year, and make people a heck of a lot happier at the same time, I call that a win.

Full Press Release

Comments (4)

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Gas Prices
written by kristen , May 21, 2008

That would be great. Coming from the bay area you are always forced to decide which road to take, guessing on the traffic. I'm looking forward to the decrease in traffic!

a little optimistic
written by John , May 22, 2008

This would have the effect of distributing the load, which is probably good. But where now if you guess well, or have good information, you can avoid a jam, with this system practically everyone would have the same information. So people would reroute themselves to other roads, and the jam would tend to not get worse. In over-saturated areas, that would tend to make all roads equally jammed. The fun part of all that would be that if you didn't have the new device, but everyone else did, it wouldn't matter to you! Where today there might be large differences in time based on route selection, with this system the large differences would tend to go away. Ironically, making the need for the system less to any individual driver. There would be exceptions, of course. If there was a sinkhole that totally ate a road, then you probably want to take a different route.

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written by Drew , May 22, 2008

I never have to wait in traffic. And did I mention I live in LA?? Because I commute on a Vespa, and motorcycle lane splitting is permitted in California, I get 70 mpg while never wasting any of my fuel idling in traffic!

Cool
written by Jon , May 22, 2008

I was going to say the Dash Express thats on Amazon and possible other places now does this already, but Dash gets the service from INRIX. It's great and truly is a real time saver.

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