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AnonTechie writes:

A reliable way of predicting the flow of traffic could be a great convenience for commuters, as well as a significant energy-saver. During an emergency evacuation following a natural disaster, reliable predictions of the best routes could even be a lifesaver. Now a team of researchers from MIT, the University of Notre Dame, and elsewhere has devised what they say is an effective and relatively simple formula for making such predictions.

The findings are reported in a paper in the journal Nature Communications by researchers including Marta Gonzalez, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering and engineering systems at MIT and Zoltan Toroczkai and Yihui Ren at Notre Dame.

The authors, all physicists by training, have been applying their knowledge of the computational modeling of complex systems to human-scale systems, such as traffic flows or the spread of disease. Their work has found patterns in these human systems similar to those seen in models of physical systems, the researchers say.

http://phys.org/news/2014-11-traffic.html

http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/model-predicts-traffic-flow-1106