A Satnav App to Avoid Traffic Jams

No more stop and go in the city. No more traffic jams on the motor way. Imagine, you can just drive ahead! The three young software engineers Christian Brüggemann, Elia Franke and Helge Holzmann from Hanover promise that this is possible with ‘Greenway’. Lately, they gained a special award for their sustainable innovation in a science competition in Sydney. The award was endowed with 10 000 Euro. Due to this app the car drivers save a lot of time but also a lot of petrol and it is possible to reduce the CO2 emissions.

‘Greenway‘  attempts to use the road system efficiently: The program analyses the traffic volume on every available route from the place of departure until to the destination.  The system knows the maximum volume of every route. If there are too many cars on the shortest route, the satnav app redirects some cars even before the traffic gets congested.

The three students have developed an algorithm identifying and calculating the position of the cars, that are equipped with ‘Greenway’, via GPS in advance. The system can consider the traffic volume and the length of the road in order to find the perfect route. Greenway is tested in Munich for one month in about sixty vehicles to check the software’s stability and scalability. But the intelligent satnav app can only work out when it is used in all vehicles.