Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
at all, like this time. What he would really need is a personalized driver assistance
system that would tailor the information based on his own needs. A few weeks ago,
he viewed this automotive show on TV where they presented the latest technological
advances in the automobile industry. They featured premium cars that used computer
vision technology to assist their drivers. The car was able to recognize speed limit
signs or approaching vehicles, warn and react to obstacles on the street, and had
many other features that completely changed the driving experience. In the episode,
they also revealed that they are now working on connecting the sensors of the cars
with a central traffic coordination system. They argued that such system would be
able to notice any type of traffic anomalies by interlinking the data streams from cars,
surveillance cameras, and many other sources. Pointing out the benefit of the system,
they explained that this information could be fed right back into the navigation system
of cars, which can then adjust the current route using real-time information. “How
great would it be to have such a system and a luxury car,” Steven sighed. He knew
that unless they would win in the lottery, they would never be able to afford such a
car. At least not as long as Carl and Clara would be able to financially stand on their
own feet.
The thought about Clara woke him up from his daydream. She was still talking
about her new job, and he really wanted to hear how she liked her new job. Maybe,
soon, he would finally be able to afford his dream car…
13.1 Introduction
Due to ever increasing urbanization, the traffic situation in megacities is increasingly
getting worse. Consequently, using vehicle has become an everyday challenge due
to several factors. One of these factors is sudden traffic disturbances. This issue is
one of the problems addressed by the Intermodal Mobility Assistance for Megacities
(IMA) system. The aim of the system is to enable its users to get access to traffic-
related information which is updated in real time. This information is subsequently
used by the route planning component of the IMA system to indicate the best path
at any time.
From a scientific point of view, the calculation of routes from a given source to
a given target location is referred to as the best-first search problem [
22
]. There are
many algorithms that can be used to solve this problem; two of the most popular
ones are the Dijkstra [
7
] and the A* [
22
, pp. 97-101] algorithm.
Yet, our traffic and transport networks have changed, and in parallel, our possibility
to gain information about the current traffic situation has evolved proportionally.
Currently, there are many different channels that can be used to retrieve information
about traffic-related data, such as congestion or accidents, or more general data, such
as departure and arrival times of public transports. Traffic information is provided
by many different sources. These sources include traffic monitoring cameras, user
data (e.g., accident or traffic jam reports), third party data (e.g., obtained from public
transportation companies), but also data from a multitude of mobile devices and
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