New University of Loughborough(UK) and University of Colima Briitsh Council Award
8 April 2015
Newton Institutional Links is part of the Newton Fund. This is part of the UK’s official development assistance programme.
Institutional Links are grants for the development of research and innovation between the UK and partner countries. The research tackles local development needs and challenges such as extreme weather conditions, access to affordable health care, food and energy security.
Worldwide, because of their reliance on fossil fuels, the combined use of public and private transportation represents the second largest cause of greenhouse gases and, since the number of cars continues to grow exponentially, the pollution is increasing. It has been proposed that the greenhouse gases that originated climate change have been due in large part to vehicular congestion. Vehicular congestion, particularly in cities is directly linked to the quality of life. Respiratory diseases are most frequent in areas where the amount of pollutant particles in the air is high. In 2009, the 23% of CO2 was produced by terrestrial transportation systems, which equals 7000 million tons of CO2.
Our hypothesis is that if traffic jams can be minimised air quality will improve and energy consumption can be reduced. The aim of this research is to reduce congestion by improving large scale traffic flow on busy highways. A proportion of road users will be advised by an in-car device of the optimal speed for them to maximise the speed of all the cars in their immediate area. Compliance reduces the drivers road/toll tax. A example of implementation of a related system is that of the London Congestion Charge that in its first year of operation (2003) reported traffic reduction of 25%. A percentage of vehicles (research) will dictate the flow characteristics of all vehicles on the highway.
A large scale vehicular ad-hoc network is needed and upon that network an algorithm run to advise drivers. Future work involves the manufacture of the speed advice device and the choice of suitable machine learning algorithms for voluntary linear flow of vehicles. UK will facilitate the radio links whilst Mexico will facilitate the ad-hoc network. All partners will integrate and develop the system.