CLEARFLOW - The New Tool to Help Avoid Traffic Jams

Microsoft, on Thursday (10th April, 2008), announced that it has developed over a period of 5 years a software technology, christened CLEARFLOW, which will help in in providing driving directions that incorporates complex software models to help users avoid traffic jams.

This Web-based plan uses artificial intelligence and applies machine-learning techniques to the problem of traffic jams. It will reflect the complex traffic interactions that occur as traffic backs up on freeways and spills over onto city streets.

CLEARFLOW will be able to plan routes occasionally that might not be intuitive to a driver. For example, it may give advice that it is better to stay on a crowded highway, rather than taking a detour as side streets are even more clogged by the cars that fled the original traffic jam.

The project began in 2003 when Eric Horvitz, an artificial intelligence researcher at Microsoft, found himself stuck on the freeway while looking for a new restaurant in Seattle. He tried to use the navigation device in his car and the result was nightmarish.

The researchers have build software algorithms which modelled traffic behaviour and also used the trip data from the Microsoft employees trips in the Seattle city who volunteered to carry GPS units in their cars. Over a period of 4 years they were able to collect huge data which also included 16,500 discrete trips covering over 125,000 miles. They were able to create individual personalities for over 819,000 road segments in the Seattle region.

The simulation model done for Seattle was transferred by using the algorithms they had developed and the same was applied then to other cities. The city models are combined with live traffic data generated by networks of highway sensors. This helps in creating 60 million road segments and allows the system to predict congestion based on time of the day, weather and other variables like sporting events or protest rallies.

The development of the software is part of an attempt by Microsoft to catch up with Google by offering an attractive array of related services surrounding its Live search service.

The software can be downloaded freely as part of Microsoft's Live.com site (maps.live.com) and will be available initially for 72 cities in USA.