While the automobile has its advantages, it also causes a lot of problems. But a team in Mexico City, who have done some thinking about traffic, says the same automobile can actually solve those problems itself.
That team was the winner of this year’s Audi Urban Future Award (AUFA), which had invited Seoul, Berlin, Boston and Mexico City to develop projects that would offer mobility solutions: improving mobility and enhancing the quality of life.
“Car finds city” was the theme of the award, and the winning Mexico City team appears to have nailed the theme by having the car tell a database where it is, where it’s been and how long it took to get there.
The process actually takes a smartphone to relay that information through an application and a website. Drivers must first agree to share the data on their personal movements, albeit anonymously, and while many might be wary of doing so, the team behind the idea thinks most will be happy to go along if it reduces commuting times and delays.
That team is led by architect and city planner José Castillo. He and data analyst Carlos Gershenson and Gabriella Gómez-Mont, head of the city’s Laboratory for the City, a think tank, call their project “an operating system for urban mobility.”
“Our city needs an operating system to help people make informed decisions about their mobility choices and to support public officials and policy makers in finding long-term solutions for the megacity,” said Castillo, who is also a professor at Harvard University.
The winning team’s project, he says, works in real time and is very low-cost.
The process relies on the collection of real-time data from commuters that is used to assess congestion problems. Other drivers can identify problem areas and avoid them, travel at a different time or use another system of transport.
But the information gathered is also gradually building a database that will create an overview of traffic problems and aid in transportation planning. Other tools are Twitter and Foursquare, which can offer insight into travel habits through their geo-location features.
Audi is active in developing technologies that improve mobility, such as its so-called car-to-x system, which connects vehicles to a city’s traffic control system and advises drivers how fast they should travel to pass through the next set of green lights.
The German automaker sponsors its award program every two years. This year’s winning team took home a cash prize of about 1.7 million pesos, or US $124,000, for their efforts.
For Chilangos, any system that improves traffic flow has to be welcome. According to a “commuter pain index” developed by IBM, Mexico City was “the most painful commuter city in the world” in 2011. Some 4 million vehicles use its roads, and commuters can spend up to three hours to get to work.
They have some mobility issues.
