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"Drivers may soon spend less time stuck in a traffic jam thanks to groundbreaking technology developed by IBM, the company announced Wednesday. \nResearchers at the tech giant teamed up with Lyon, France to build a system that helps traffic operators at the city's transportation management center reduce congestion on the road, and restore traffic flow. \nUsing real-time traffic data, they can evaluate an incident with \"predictive traffic management technology\" to determine how to keep vehicles moving, according to a release. Called \"Decision Support System Optimizer\" or DSSO, it can detect incidents, predict the impact of these incidents, predict traffic and suggest the best course of action to take to solve a problem.\nFor example, operators can adjust traffic signals to let other cars detour more quickly when an ambulance drives by in a rush.\n\"Piloting this analytics technology will help the city anticipate and avoid many traffic jams before they happen, and lessen their impact on citizens, Gerard Collomb, Lyon's mayor, said in a statement. \"Using the data that we are collecting to make more informed decisions will help us to promote about how to resolve unexpected traffic events, and optimize public transportation.\"\nWhereas transportation centers currently use predetermined response plans or make spontaneous decisions to address bottlenecks, they can't factor in previous and future traffic patterns into their decisions, according to IBM.\n\nSEE ALSO: Get There Faster With These 4 Traffic Apps\n\"Historical and real-time traffic data from the City of Lyon is combined with advanced analytics and algorithms to help model predicted conditions under both normal and incident conditions, and the resulting impact across the entire network of roads, buses and trams.\"\nThe system can estimate drive times and traffic patterns more accurately, IBM added. Eventually, the algorithms will \"learn\" from successful plans, and apply that knowledge to its future recommendations. \nWhat do you think of IBM's traffic-management system? Would you like to see it used in your city? Tell us in the comments below.\nImage courtesy of Flickr, epSos.de"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2012/11/14/ibm-technology-traffic/>