Originally posted by the Voice of America.
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             New Navigation Technology Predicts Traffic Conditions

   by Elizabeth Lee

   From New Delhi to Beijing commuters spend more time than they would
   like stuck in traffic. In the United States, Los Angeles and San
   Francisco tie for second place for having the worst traffic jams, with
   Washington D.C. winning first place according to the Texas A&M
   Transportation Institute.
   Some drivers depend on GPS navigation systems with real time traffic
   information to avoid congestion. There is now new navigation technology
   that claims it can provide the fastest route available by predicting
   traffic conditions before the driver leaves the house.

   In Los Angeles, a driver spends sixty-one hours every year on the road
   stuck in traffic.

   Christian Garcia knows what it's like. He delivers and installs
   televisions and is on the road all the time. "It's a prison of cars.
   There's too many cars, you can't move around a lot," Garcia said.

   Professor Cyrus Shahabi also knows about traffic jams. He lives more
   than 65 kilometers from his office at the University of Southern
   California, in Los Angeles. He says he always seems to be late.

   "Everytime I walk into a meeting I would say I was stuck in traffic It
   sounds more now as an excuse than that really I was stuck in traffic,
   Shahabi said. That's even with the help of a navigation system.


   Shahabi and his PhD student Ugur Demiryurek decided to develop a smart
   phone app that will do what other navigation systems cannot. It's
   called ClearPath.

   "I would never think that my PhD work would actually become a product
   for people," Demiryurek said.

   Shahabi says ClearPath uses historical data to predict the traffic.

   "What's unique is that we utilize a lot of data that's currently become
   available including traffic data, weather data, and we analyze that so
   that we can predict what's going to happen in front of you when you
   leave home," Shahabi said.

   ClearPath uses two and a half years worth of traffic data from 9,000
   sensors on the roads of Los Angeles. It also collects information on
   accidents.


   "Now you are driving you have an accident in front of you but the
   accident is 20 minutes away and you know from historical data that that
   accident would clear by the time you get there. We can take that into
   account and send you toward the accident because we think by the time
   you get there there wouldn't be any accident," Shahabi said.


   Shahabi says unlike other navigation systems that only respond to
   current traffic conditions, a driver can enter in advance what time he
   wants to leave on a specific time and date, and ClearPath will give the
   fastest route. ClearPath also looks at the entire road network,
   including surface streets as well as highways, before the driver hits
   the road. He says systems like Google Maps do not.


   "Once you're at the freeway, they don't look at the surface streets
   anymore. They only look at the freeways until they get you close to
   your destination. At that time they look back at the surface street,"
   Shahabi said.


   Ugur Demiryurek says they will launch the free ClearPath app for roads
   in Los Angeles in two months. In a year, he and Shahabi aim to have
   ClearPath available nationwide and overseas once they can collect
   traffic data from other cities.


   "I thought always that L.A. had the worst traffic but now I know that
   Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo, believe it or not, Singapore, Hong
   Kong definitely are examples that can immediately utilize this,"
   Shahabi said.


   Shahabi hopes to license this new technology to firms who already have
   navigation systems, such as Google and Apple.
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   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/traffic-technology-clearpath/1616682.
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References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/traffic-technology-clearpath/1616682.html