2008/09/16 13:30
Thanks to technology, holiday highway traffic jams are gone!
2008/09/16 13:30 in basic info
As I mentioned in the last post, this past weekend was Chuseok, the biggest holiday season in Korea. It's kind of like Thanksgiving, where families traditionally gather together to celebrate the harvest and have a good time together.
But, every fall, people get really scared of one thing: the traffic jam during the holiday season. Nearly a quarter of the entire Korean population gets on the road to visit their (grand-)parents. Some people literally drive for 20 hours straight to get back to Seoul from Busan, which is only about 300 miles (or less than 500 km). You can probably tell how dreadful the holiday season can be for many drivers, who are mostly dads.
The situation was expected only to be worse this year. This Chuseok season was particularly short because it was set across a weekend. Chuseok is typically about 5 days long, but this year it was only 3 days long. Last year there were about 3.28 million cars on the road; this year 3.64 mil. Imagine 11% more cars on the road in 2 less days. That's some crazy concentrated traffic. (via mbn)
And the result? About 2-4 hours less spent on the road than last year. All the more, during the peak congestions, drivers ended up spending 5-6 hours less on the road. Basically, people are surprised that it didn't resemble anything that they were fearing.
How was this made possible? Are there some kind of telepathic activities among drivers to let them know when to leave and what routes to take and stuff?
It turns out the answer to this question is a yes. To be more precise, Korean drivers were just very adept at getting the right information at the right time. And they moved dynamically and flexibly in response to what other drivers were doing. This telepathy channel is called "communication technologies".
Drivers checked out a traffic portal named Road Plus, provided by Korea Highway Corportation. The number of visitors to the site jumped from 210,000 last year to 810,000 this year. This portal provides you with information on the real-time traffic condition, actual CCTV shots of highways, breaking news, expected arrival time, or even tips for finding your best routes. Remember, some 3G networks in Korea cover the entire nation. I'm sure this combined with many GPS services really brought "efficiency" into highway traffic management. (This feels like a very good research topic for those that are studying complex networks, network analysis, algorithms, etc. )
Mobile communication is also worth mentioning. Drivers used ARS services to check upon the current stauts of some roads. SMSs were also huge contributors. Younger drivers used mobile communication particularly well to find the right time to take off and to discover alternative routes when they faced traffic jams.
So after all, information does set you free. Transportation is no exception. As a computer science major, I'm wondering as more people find about these services, if there would be any "greedy algorithm" type of situation where people move too quickly and new traffic jams are dynamically created in different parts.
I'd also like to imagine what happens if you can bring in more collective intelligence and web 2.0-ish concept into traffic congestion management. For example, what if traffic-jam-stuck drivers can endlessly send SMSs to a central traffic system about the current condition and receive a coupon to an E-Mart coupon in return? I'm not sure if that'll ever work, but will be an interesting concept.
I'm just happy that technology is actually making people's lives better. I'll look more into different areas in Korea where technology is indeed bringing in efficiency.
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