Automakers are investing heavily in making cars safer and more economical for the future. And what better place to begin with then reducing traffic jams as that reduces the risk of collision, saves time by reducing traffic jams and improves fuel economy.
Honda developed a smartphone app which it tested on a toll road between Ulujami and Pondok Ranji in Jakarta, Indonesia with positive results.
The new smartphone app that on average was able to delay the formation of traffic jams by as much as six minutes and improve fuel-efficiency by as much as 22 percent. Tech-On reports that Honda worked with researchers at the University of Tokyo to deploy a new smartphone app in vehicles between September 2012 to February 2013 on a toll road in Jakarta, which monitored the acceleration and deceleration of a vehicle and instructed drivers on when to slow down.
The concept is simple; drivers often struggle to maintain a safe and appropriate distance between them and the car in front, resulting in late reactions that cause the cars behind to do the same. In order to test the effectiveness of its technology, Honda tested two concepts; one that operates as a standalone system, and another that connects to a cloud server to monitor and synchronize driving patterns of the cars involved in the test.
The two methods produced encouraging results. Both the standalone system and the interactive system helped delay the formation of traffic jams by up to six minutes, while the interactive system enabled a small improvement in fuel efficiency over the standalone app (22 percent compared to 20 percent).
Honda however with the research and tests proved that a simple smartphone app could aid in road safety and encourage more efficient driving habits while automakers implement newer and expensive technology in their cars.
