Communications of the ACM
Stanford Study to Try Cold Cash and Social Game to Relieve Rush Hour Traffic
Stanford graduate student Chinmoy Mandayam makes adjustments to one of the radio-frequency identification scanners installed on campus for the Capri project.
Credit: Stanford University
Stanford University's Congestion and Parking Relief Incentives (Capri) project aims to motivate people to avoid rush hour traffic by offering a chance at a large reward instead of a guaranteed small payout.
Users can choose the certain reward of about 10 cents per trip or try their luck for a bigger payout. Participants receive a unique identification tag that is placed on the inside of the car's windshield. Scanners installed at 10 main campus entry points detect users who avoid the normal weekday rush hour.
The system automatically awards credits to those drivers for an online game that pays random cash prizes from $2 to $50. The second phase of the study rewards drivers for parking at less-used lots to alleviate wasted time and energy at chronically full lots.
"With today's technology, it's feasible to install low-cost sensors on a wireless network and make use of new Internet technology," says Stanford professor Balaji Prabhakar. The researchers plan to tweak the system if the Capri project does not meet the program's goal of reducing rush hour traffic by 10 percent.
The success of an earlier trial resulted in $3 million in research funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation.
From Stanford Report (CA)
View Full Article
Abstracts Copyright © 2012 Information Inc. 
, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
No entries found