IBM Podcast Explores Smarter Traffic Systems

ARMONK, NY - Each year, traffic congestion costs more than $78 billion in the US alone, with 2.3 billon gallons of wasted fuel and 3.7 billion hours of wasted time, according to traffic management experts in a new podcast from IBM (NYSE: IBM). The podcast, featured on the blog Building a smarter planet, illustrates how understanding human behavior, analyzing transportation patterns, and adding intelligence to the traffic system will help dramatically increase the efficiency of the world’s transportation systems.

The traffic podcast features insight from three experts: Tom Vanderbilt, author of the book, “Traffic - Why We Drive the Way We Do,” Sam Schwartz, a transportation engineer and author of the New York Daily News column “Gridlock Sam,” and Laura Wynter, an IBM researcher who specializes in transportation network analysis.

The systems that make the world work, including healthcare, food, traffic, energy, water and financial systems, are all in need of dramatic change. The Building a smarter planet blog is aimed at discussing some of these problems and potential solutions for addressing them. To receive updates on future conversations, videos and podcasts, subscribe to the blog’s RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/ASmarterPlanet.

For more background and resources on IBM’s agenda to build a smarter planet, visit ibm.com or the smarter planet press kit.