Applied Information Blog

Public transportation could unlock anywhere from $1.5 million to $1.8 billion per year in value depending on the size of the city, according to a study by Rutgers University. These benefits come from many different places. Riders that don’t need to purchase a second vehicle can save nearly $10,000 per year.
Traffic congestion costs more than $300 billion each year in the U.S. alone, according to INRIX, due to lost productivity, increased transportation cost, wasted fuel and other factors. New smart city advancements aim to alleviate traffic congestion with the help of new technologies, including cellular connectivity, artificial intelligence, new sensors and connected vehicle technologies.
Imagine that a strong storm sweeps through a city and high winds knock traffic signals down from wires and off poles. In addition to creating unsafe driving conditions, these outages can slow emergency response efforts and require emergency personnel to direct traffic when their services might be needed elsewhere. These side effects can quickly add up in cost and social impact.
Imagine that you’re merging onto the highway and your vehicle suddenly takes care of the driving. The car accelerates to fit bumper-to-bumper with a group of vehicles traveling at a fast speed. You’re free to make the most of your commute without worrying about sudden congestion or other dangers of highway driving.
Imagine driving down a street and your car suddenly brakes. You didn’t notice, but a pedestrian was running across the road and passed right in front of your vehicle. Technology in the pedestrian's pocket communicated with your vehicle to stop it in time, and what once could have been yet another traffic fatality became a minor inconvenience.
Anyone who has driven in Los Angeles will attest that traffic congestion is a major problem, but what they may not realize is that the city ranks worst for congestion in the entire world. In fact, the list of top 25 worst cities for traffic is dominated by cities in the United States—all of them large and fast-growing.

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