John Metcalfe of CityLab points out an interesting video shot on a street in New York City recently. The video is a time-lapse recording of activity at a City Bike dock featuring rentable bicycles and curbside parking across the street. Voilà!
The point, says videogrpaher Luke Ohlson, is that the bike dock is much busier than the car parking.
Timothy Revell reports on a system named "CarNote" that allows drivers to send each other messages while underway. The basic idea is that drivers can explain their behavior to others, thus reducing the risk of aggressive interactions, e.g., "road rage".
There has been much dicussion of self-driving cars and their pros and cons. How will they handle impending accidents? Who will own them? How will they affect traffic?
William Gibson, the Canadian science-fiction writer, once said:
The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed.
The Internet sometimes provides interesting pairs of news items. Today's pair concerns an intersection between mobility, safety, and technology.
An item in IEEE Spectrum by Prachi Patel notes the development of a smart traffic system in Pittsburgh. Called Surtrac, the system developed by CMU professor Stephen Smith uses Artificial Intelligence techniques to adapt traffic signals to current conditions.
Prof. Smith's research suggests that Surtrac has reduced trip times 25 percent and idling times by over 40 percent, a significant difference.
The Globe and Mail reports on a recent survey of Canadians concerning their views on self-driving cars, apparently meaning cars with advanced driving assistance technologies such as the Autopilot mode in a Tesla.
On 7 May 2016, Joshua Brown was killed as his Tesla drove underneath an 18-wheeler on US 27-A highway in Florida. The truck was making a left turn from the westbound lanes across the eastbound lanes when the eastbound Tesla Model S struck it.