back to article Big data boffins crunch GPS traces, find altruistic route planning is good for everyone

GPS and navigation systems make it a lot easier to find the most direct way to get where you're going, but with a downside: they funnel everybody onto the same congested route. People who know a city well already know the best response to this: take an alternate route. Navigation systems know about alternate routes as well, …

  1. Sampler

    Google Car

    So, when automated vehicles become the norm, will such algorithms be built into their navigation systems?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Google Car

      Already is.

      Tomtom has always planned routes based on recorded traffic speed, not shortest distance by default. I don't think there are many GPSs now that would use shortest route.

      Plus they also have real time congestion speed data. So these big data boffins have made an assumption that is false. Routes ARE ALREADY planned based on traffic speed (both general and specific traffic jam data), they're already choosing the optimal route to get you there quickest.

      Any reduction is congestion, doesn't result in a net faster journey for those users because their journey is already calculated based on real time congestion data.

      See TomTom route times, Speed profiles traffic etc.

      http://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/licensing/products/traffic/

      I also question their calculations, that longer twisty journey only 3 minutes longer? I doubt that, there would be many more junctions crossed, many more wait points. I would trust Tomtoms calculation more than theirs on that.

      1. TRT Silver badge

        Re: they're already choosing the optimal route to get you there quickest.

        I think I understood the article differently to you. The suggestion is to balance load across the system by invisibly ranking the alternative routes according to the search criteria (speed, distance etc) and then selecting a sub-optimal route which is presented to the user as the preferred one. The assumption is that the majority of systems are going to pick the optimal route by their criterion, which then loads that route with traffic, reducing its optimality. Even with real-time data on traffic loading, speed, accidents etc if every system recalculates a route based on the same data, then the problem just shifts to the alternative route. In other words, with similar algorithms and similar inputs, similar outputs are produced. The idea is to artificially introduce "noise" into the output and spread the traffic out over alternative routes which creates a net benefit when considering all the traffic as a whole. No one individual could be said to gain or lose under the system when taken across time.

    2. Nigel 11

      Google Maps

      with a downside: they funnel everybody onto the same congested route.

      Not if you are navigating using Google maps on your Android.

      I recently got taken on a tour of Coventry suburbia by my phone. I did wonder what it was up to until I re-emerged onto the main road about fifty yards past a major accident.

      On the minus side it introduces other people to various unclassified Northamptonshire roads which I'd far rather remained known only to myself and the locals. So please ignore your phone. Has it warned you about the potholes? They eat tyres out here, you know.

      1. TRT Silver badge

        Re: Google Maps

        Tyres? There's some potholes in Hertfordshire that will eat your whole damn car!

  2. MrDamage Silver badge

    Road less travelled

    My Navman already does that. Constantly ignores 110km/h freeways to send me down long, windy 60km/h tourist drives chock full of buses, caravans, and grey nomads who slow down every 100 meters or so to look at something pretty.

    My solution: Throw the fucking thing out the window and go back to the old fashioned paper map book.

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: Road less travelled

      You did look in the settings and uncheck "avoid freeways" first before you threw it out the window, didn't you?

      1. TRT Silver badge

        Re: Road less travelled

        You loaded the "Zen master" package?

        “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there in 200 yards."

        “Flow with whatever may happen, and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing; which is taking the third exit at the next roundabout. ”

        “If you just sit and observe, you will see how restless your mind is. In one mile, slow traffic. Stay on the current road for 5 miles.”

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not sure this is the best way

    The method I'd like to choose routes in an unfamiliar area are:

    1) the simplest / least stressful route - if I just want to get from point A to point B with the least amount of fuss. I don't care if it takes longer if it reduces the chances of missing a turn or going the wrong way. I'd prefer a jaunt down surface streets instead of a quick on/off an expressway, or maybe I'd prefer an expressway that takes longer if the surface streets take me through areas popular with carjackers.

    2) the most scenic route - if I have time and there are things worth seeing I'd rather take a drive down a nice windy road instead of an expressway with concrete walls on the sides.

    Where I live, I know what routes to take to avoid traffic, so I don't want tourists being directed down the same routes and getting confused. Take them on the main roads where they can reach their destination easier, and leave the neighborhood cut thrus to the locals.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Not sure this is the best way

      "[...] the most scenic route - [..]

      While touring Norway in the 1980s my girlfriend did the navigating. That was before the oil money made a difference to their infrastructure. One section was particularly gruelling down a long hill through narrow dark snow tunnels - across a river by ferry - and a crawl up the other side. Looking at the map afterwards I realised it had been something of a detour off a relatively major road. Her excuse was that it had looked pretty on the map.

      On the other hand buying freshly picked cherries on a road through the Hardangerfjord orchards was worth any detour she had devised to get us there.

      1. TRT Silver badge

        Re: my girlfriend did the navigating...narrow dark snow tunnels...freshly picked cherries

        Are they a little more liberal about that sort of thing over there? ;)

  4. redpawn

    More Cars than Roads

    All the routs stink. Any past local knowledge advantage has been destroyed. Other than outright going in the wrong direction it doesn't much matter which way you go because all the alternate routs are past capacity too.

    Lets not build high speed rail. China and Europe do that. Gas is cheap now. Get a large powerful vehicle. You'll have more status and the capacity to go faster, much faster. You'll feel smug too.

    1. Charles 9

      Re: More Cars than Roads

      No one wants to foot the massive bill for such an undertaking. Besides,California ALONE is larger than several European countries.

      Please name me ONE mass transit system that actually turns an honest profit. Or is there another reason private enterprise doesn't step in?

      1. notowenwilson

        Re: More Cars than Roads

        Roads generally don't make a profit either. Yes, there are exceptions, but no, they are not common.

        1. Yag

          Re: More Cars than Roads

          Rail systems are mostly paid by its users.

          Road systems are mostly paid by the taxes.

          No wonder road is so competitive compared to rail, expecially if the user does not pay local taxes...

          1. Charles 9

            Re: More Cars than Roads

            You forget TOLL roads, which IINM DO turn a profit or the companies that run them wouldn't still be doing this line of work.

            1. Yag

              Re: More Cars than Roads

              Toll roads and subsided rail are two reasons why I used "mostly" in my sentences.

            2. notowenwilson

              Re: More Cars than Roads

              I did some reading on this before I posted, in the review I was looking at the only toll roads that were profitable were those where there was no other meaningful way to get from A to B, such as where there is only one arterial road or there is a river in the way and the toll road was the only bridge across. All the rest had some sort of subsidy.

          2. Alfie Noakes

            Re: More Cars than Roads

            @Yag

            "Rail systems are mostly paid by its users."

            In the UK, rail companies receive billions of pounds per year in subsidies (on average, several pence per passenger mile). I don't know the actual percentage compared with paid-for fares, but it is probably quite a lot!

            "Road systems are mostly paid by the taxes."

            That'll be the taxes in the form of duty on fuel, and VAT on the fuel and the duty, and the road fund licence wotsit, and car tax, and car insurance tax etc - £50-odd billions worth every year, of which only a tiny fraction is spent back on the roads!

            No wonder motorists think that they are treated unfairly.

            mb

            1. Queasy Rider

              Re: More Cars than Roads

              I once read, (probably a decade ago, which is why I am sketchy on the details) in an article about small local communities losing their bus services, that if the long distance bus companies were subsidized to the extent that the rail companies were, the bus companies could offer their services for free. I don't know if that was hyperbole but it certainly made me sit up and take notice.

  5. Neil Barnes Silver badge

    Given that the majority of drivers I see

    seem to need a satnag to find their way from home to the supermarket, the solution is simple: set the satnag software to deliver the longer but friendlier route instead of the direct route on a random basis, at the proportion required to improve the main route.

    The pain is distributed among the drivers, and most are used to the satnag routing them around jams anyway (which it is, in a way, it's just that the jam doesn't exist unless they ignore the software routing them around it...) so there should be no issue.

    Those who choose to read the roadsigns or the angle of the sun or which side of the tree the moss grows on may happily continue as they are doing now - or as I do, putting the satnag on so the missus can tease it when I go a way it doesn't like.

    "Turn left."

    "No."

    "Take the next left."

    "No."

    "Make a legal U-turn."

    "Shan't."

    ...

    "Recalculating route. Turn left."

    "No."

  6. jake Silver badge

    Whatever.

    Local knowledge trumps all.

    Tourists will always be confuzled ... making them more confuzled with electronic "fixes all" gizmos is only compounding the issue.

  7. Joseph Eoff

    Hmmm...

    Before we start trying to make the damn things "social," why don't we try not making them dumber than shit?

    Where I live, we have a lot of smaller roads and a few highways.

    You can get anywhere you need to go by travelling the highway then turning off onto one of the smaller roads for a mile or two.

    The stupid machines route everyone through the smaller roads, and it takes twice as long to get anywhere. People who come to visit think you live in the farthest corner of a big forest because they spent an hour dodging bambis and wild on little roads so narrow they only have one lane shared in both directions (single lane, no dividing line, drivers have to cooperatively share that lane when to cars coming from different directions meet.)

    Care to guess how this happens?

    The major highways all have speed limits in the map databases, so that areas where you have to drive slower are known. The databases don't have that information for smaller highways, so the stupid machines assume that you can drive the maximum speed for that type of highway - which is always higher than the average that the machine can figure for the major highways in its database.

    So, the damn things send you through the backwood because they think you can maintain 100kmh on a winding, single lane country road instead of sending you down the major highway where you can only average 90kmh.

    Stupid machines.

    1. Nigel 11

      Re: Hmmm...

      Stupid machines indeed. Last generation things. Scrap.

      Google Maps seems to be smart enough and well-informed enough to use the current average speed of the traffic rather than any unrealistic estimate. (Turn on "Traffic" display to see in glorious techicolor what it knows). It is also more accurate with its estimated journey times than it has any right to be! Better than some train services I have known.

      BTW I drive to work on various back roads where I can do 55-60mph on a fine day. The average is quite a lot lower because you have to slow down to 30 through the villages and 15 at some bends. One section is a main road with a 50mph limit. I don't know why. 95% of drivers on that road do 60-65mph anyway. If you insist on 50 cars will overtake you and you'll soon have an HGV driving two feet behind you. Wonder if Google maps routes using average traffic speeds or legal maximum traffic speeds?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hmmm...

      "People who come to visit think you live in the farthest corner of a big forest because they spent an hour dodging bambis and wild on little roads so narrow they only have one lane [...]"

      Ordered a local minicab to take me to a nearby village. It soon became obvious the driver was trying to drive and look up the destination on his smartphone. Gave him the post code for his satnav - and off we went onto the winding country roads. At one point the road went sharp right - but the driver followed the satnav instruction to straight ahead. After a few yards we were crawling along a narrow muddy track in a wood. We eventually exited the wood back onto the same road.

      A look at the map later confirmed that the road we had left did a right followed by a left to go round the wood. On paper the route through the wood must have appeared only yards shorter.

    3. DropBear
      Trollface

      Re: Hmmm...

      Well, you can always use Artificial-AI Assisted AI (AAIAAI) by taking a look at the proposed route and saying "there's a perfectly good highway near that this route is outright avoiding - lemme drag a waypoint or two onto it..."

      1. Joseph Eoff

        Re: Hmmm...

        Sure, I can do that. Now explain that to everybody trying to find their way to my small town...

        Ain't gonna happen.

  8. JimmyPage Silver badge
    Boffin

    The easiest solution ?

    Just tweak the satnav software to offer a random pick from the 3 top routes. This should spread the traffic out enough to realise some benefit with fuck all investment.

    After all, how many people have any idea if the route the satnav has chosen is the best ?

    As an aside, am I missing something, or is there no feature on any satnav where you can press a single button to say "give me the second choice route - the first is blocked". I noticed this after driving from Eastleigh to Birmingham. The motorway signs on the M3 warned the A34 was blocked. However, trying to turn off just had the satnav redirecting me *back* to the A34. No satnav/software I have seen allows you to "X" a road and circumnavigate it. Certainly not while driving :(

    1. TRT Silver badge

      Re: The easiest solution ?

      Mine does. It listens to Classic FM and picks up a data stream, then offers rerouting on the fly to avoid problems. It also offers the top three routes based on fastest, 2nd fastest and shortest. It's inevitably wrong, of course, but it's still more right if 'm out of the area of my local knowledge.

  9. TRT Silver badge

    My place of work...

    wishes to install a whole bunch of new wireless APs to form a 3D triangulation system for inside the building. Something called "MazeMap".

    Now I don't mean to be picky but you can only get to our floor via the central lift lobby. If you're a visitor, then you'll need to be met at the swipe door and escorted anyway. If you get through the door, then you have a choice of turn left or turn right, and there's a sign in front of you saying which room numbers are in which direction. There's only one corridor and it's dead straight. The same on the floor below, and on the two below that it's library to the left, everything else to the right. The ground floor is the only one that offers any possibility to get lost on, and that still has the same central corridor as the rest. The basement, no-one should be going to anyway, it's all secret stuff, server rooms and fire exits. So the only possible use for this triangulation system is to keep track of the staff.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    We were once stop-starting along the M4 when the driver decided he would leave the motorway temporarily and go cross-country for a few miles. We zipped along country lanes and finally rejoined the motorway some time later - to find ourselves behind the same distinctive van as when we left. The detour had felt like a smoother experience - even though the overall speed was an illusion.

    In the late 1970s when motorways weren't so crowded it was faster and more fuel efficient to cruise up the M1 across the M6 and down the M5 to the Worcester area - rather than go straight across the country on ordinary roads.

    1. Nigel 11

      Do the better surfaces on motorways improve fuel efficiency?

      Near where I live I can choose to do 70mph on the M40 or 60mph on the B4100 (which used to be the main road before the motorway). The odd thing is that I get better fuel economy going faster on the motorway rather than slower on the scenic route. Both routes are fairly flat and straight.

      1. Charles 9

        Usually, going slower is better on the gas usage, but perhaps you make up for it on the motorway with a shorter travel time (more gas at a time for a shorter time in this case beats less gas at a time for a longer time).

  11. hardboiledphil

    But eco...

    The last few years most satnav's I've seen have been more interested in reducing CO2 than reducing driving times. I didn't know that they still cared that we got there the quickest possible, just that we killed less polar bears doing it

    1. DropBear
      Joke

      Re: But eco...

      ...have you seen what those polar bears do to innocent - manga-eyed baby seals...? Those brutes deserve everything coming their way! I'll drive a longer route home today just to help foil them! Onwards, for the seals!!!

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh another complication ..

    Is the mantra that private car ownership is evil, and must be discouraged at all costs (except the collapse of the motor industry).

    In Brum this means:

    1) New builds with no/minimal parking allocation

    2) Junctions where the traffic lights are phased to deliberately slow traffic

    (I'm sure we've all sat in traffic, had our light go green, but find we can't move because a pedestrian crossing is red, and though to ourselves: "Surely they could make it so they don't clash ?". They could, but won't)

    3) Two "bypasses" where it's actually faster to go through the town than round the bypass (Selly Oak and Northfield). Bearing in mind the A38 is allegedly a trunk road, having 10 sets of phased pedestrian lights in less than a mile is a joke.

    Joined up thinking my arse.

    And it's as long as nonsense like this is permitted that I call bollocks on the seriousness of AGW - if it exists.

  13. Bob Rocket

    Government by the people

    All Government vehicles (national, local or quango) should use the suboptimal setting letting the rest of us get to our destinations. Aftter all, we pay them for an efficient transport network.

    1. Charles 9

      Re: Government by the people

      You do know police and fire vehicles are also government vehicles (medical depends; some are, some aren't).

  14. Unep Eurobats
    Devil

    Quickest isn't always best

    I'd opt to take more time if it meant a smoother journey: less stopping and starting, fewer junctions and traffic lights - and no speed bumps. Speed bumps are the work of Satan.

  15. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    In the wonderful future of self driving cars...

    premium account holders will be routed with priority.

  16. Jim-234

    I already find that Google navigation is rather creative at routing you all over places you didn't know existed to cut down on choke points.

    Driving through traffic that makes you hate humanity every day, you don't mind actually taking a few minutes longer if it means you might actually get to see open road ahead of you instead of just brake lights.

    But the real issue is stupid road designers, I often comment that people have to go to college to get dumb enough to design roads the way they do. Nobody seems to understand that if you build stupid choke points, you will have horrific traffic jams. (trying to merge 5 lanes of traffic into 2 lanes will tend to do that).

    My supervillan dream is an army of massive robot bulldozers & concrete machines to just redo the roads correctly for maximum speed and removal of choke points.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      re: Choke points

      They are deliberate. They allow the authorities to control mass movement.

      Try organising a march on Westminster using the UK road system, and see what I mean.

      (Of course this paranoia has gifted the bad guys a ready made target to use against the state. Be *very* careful if you start to analyse the UK road network for a few choice places to issue a "bomb threat" about.)

      Did anyone notice last summer how many "roadworks" were effectively preventing mass E-W and N-S movements ?

      Next time you go on a long (50 +) mile journey, look carefully where the roadworks are.

  17. Queasy Rider

    Was not the current layout of Paris streets designed with the control of street mobs specifically in mind? I thought I saw that somewhere.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I think it went older than that if you watch The Day the Universe Changed (episode 3, I think: "Point of View"). It was one of the early results of mathematical town/city planning. They carefully calculated the patterns of the roads so that only key roads were wide enough for mobs...and military formations. The rest were too narrow and would bottle them up.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        James Burke fans ..

        I think it was "Connections" - the previous series. He showed how the development of cannon affected the shape of city walls and the need for wide streets to move cannon inside the town.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: James Burke fans ..

          No, I confirmed it by watching it. It IS The Day The Universe Changed, and it IS "Point of View," because the conversation progressed from painting by perspective to painting by geometry to designing cities by geometry which led to the garrison town near Venice which was what I was thinking about.

  18. rdhood

    Traffic flows like water. When it gets backed up enough in one place, it seeks alternate paths. I have a commute path that is a couple miles further, but 30 minutes faster. It is not a main artery, and is counter intuitive to most drivers. So, the herd stays on the main roads...

    1. Charles 9

      But as people find roads blocked, they look for people taking detours and follow them, too. I wouldn't be too surprised if people start noticing and following you.

      1. JimmyPage Silver badge

        The Dirk Gentley method ?

        You may not get where you were going, but you end up where you needed to be ...

  19. G.Y.

    I thought Waze is already doing this

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like