Once the luxury plaything of executives and salesmen across the country, satellite navigation systems have become a part of life for many of us, even those that travel no further than the end of their drives. The one area where it really lets us down, most of the time, is in the provision of information pertaining to traffic jams but that will be a problem no longer.
A new navigation system called CADRE, or Congestion Avoidance Dynamic Routing Engine, will use live data to determine hot spots on the road and inform the driver at least 5 miles before they reach that jam. It will also provide an alternative route, thus eliminating the need to stew at the back of a five mile tailback.
There’s some talk of extending the system to be used by a number of public transports and also predicting the best time to travel. The CADRE system is being developed and created by one seriously whopping cartel of companies and organizations including Portsmouth University, Hampshire County Council, ComSine, Smartcom, ViaMichelin, and The Transport Research Laboratory. With that many organisations getting involved it’s hard to see how it will ever be finished, although I’m sure the research grant that the university will have been awarded will come in handy.
