Closing the loop between traffic/pollution sensing and vehicle route control

The Vision: Our planet has become more urban than rural in the last decade. Urban traffic has increased dramatically, making driving more stressful, costly, and unhealthy. According to the Texas Transportation Institute, the overall cost of metropolitan traffic congestion (in terms of wasted fuel and lost economic productivity) in the U.S. topped $87 billion in 2007, more than $750/year for every U.S. traveler. Our vision is to use modern wireless technology, environment monitoring, and urban traffic management to “close the loop” between urban sensing, traffic manager and vehicle route/speed enforcement with the aim of simultaneously reducing congestion, pollution, and traveler delays. The pivotal elements in this loop are: the on board sensing platforms (eg, GPS, chemical sensors, video sensors, etc); the road side traffic managers/enforcers (eg, “intelligent” traffic signal, Road Side Units); the traffic management center (Navigator Server, City Traffic manager, DoT Center); the on-board navigator; the vehicle control knobs (breaks, accelerator, steering wheel) and; last but not least, the driver. All these elements are “connected” via wireless communications (DSRC, WiFi, WiMAX and 3G/LTE).