Smarter City Traffic Pilot

I notice in a current press release that the city of Cologne, Germany has completed a pilot of a smarter traffic system created by IBM.  In graduate school we used analytical prediction methods to address much smaller traffic problems, but even then the value was clear.  If the sensors and data can be economically positioned and the needed simulations done with that data gathered.  Traffic analysis is a great place to test the broader idea of many kinds of predictive analytics.  Good to see this being done to scale, will follow to see how it is ultimately put in production:

   " ... The City of Cologne, Germany, and IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the completion of a smarter traffic pilot to predict and manage traffic flow and road congestion in the city. The pilot demonstrates how the city of Cologne can anticipate, better manage, and in many cases, avoid traffic jams and trouble spots across the city using analytics technology. The city's traffic engineers and IBM were able to predict traffic volume and flow with over 90 percent accuracy up to 30 minutes in advance. As a result, travelers would be able to better plan ahead and determine whether they should leave at a different time, plan an alternate route or use a different mode of transportation. ... "