Last month, we reported how Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart, which turned 10 this year, had launched a Gridlock Hackathon contest which aimed towards solving Bengaluru's decades long traffic situation as a part of its ten years anniversary celebrations. And now, in what could be considered as a true blue example of a community coming together for a good cause by ignoring their differences, several big tech giants and startups have poured in their applications with a wide range of solutions ranging from exploring the more practical artificial intelligence and big data to going in for the big guns such as flying cars to fight this human created monster.
The e-commerce giant had decided to crowdsource solutions focusing on Bengaluru's traffic solution in particular as it is the city it took birth ten years ago in 2007, and by solving one of the biggest daily problems being faced by Bengaluruians, it wishes to give something back to its home city courtesy which it became India's most successful e-commerce company till date.
For people considering traffic jams, gridlock situations only cause loss of precious human time, it so much more than that. It affects the country on an economic level. In Bengaluru alone, traffic jams directly cost about 2 percent from the city’s estimated GDP of $30 billion, according to an estimate given by V. Ravichandar, urban infrastructure expert and chairman at market researcher Feedback Consulting to Bloomberg. The actual cost of loss of slackened productivity, opportunity and health care caused by it can run its billions.
The contest, which closed last week, drew in more than a thousand teams from all over the world, not just India. Here are a few ideas that could put a permanent end to human's traffic misery that they have to go through unwantingly almost everyday.
Talking to Bloomberg, Akshay Rao, who works for Amazon in Seattle, has sent in his entry for the contest shared his solution. He suggests reforming the driver licensing system by creating incentives for the right road behaviour. He also proposes propagating timely information on public transport only made available to paid users.
There are several other applications suggesting incorporating the power of Internet of Things for solving the problem such as having IoT-powered road dividers that would be capable of changing orientation to handle changing traffic situations. There is also a solution proposing having a reporting system that can track vehicles that don’t comply to the road rules, a device that is capable of tracking social media to generate traffic leads and building a network of smart satellite townships that can ease the traffic flow on Bengaluru roads. There is also a suggestion for using cloud to make Bengaluru a traffic free city by helping the police in tackling traffic violators in the city and making them accountable.
The winner, which hasn't been announced yet, will get to walk away with a prize money of $5,500. But, one could say that if the contest is actually able to fix Bengaluru's traffic woes, it would be the city and its citizens who would be the real winners.
The e-commerce giant had decided to crowdsource solutions focusing on Bengaluru's traffic solution in particular as it is the city it took birth ten years ago in 2007, and by solving one of the biggest daily problems being faced by Bengaluruians, it wishes to give something back to its home city courtesy which it became India's most successful e-commerce company till date.
For people considering traffic jams, gridlock situations only cause loss of precious human time, it so much more than that. It affects the country on an economic level. In Bengaluru alone, traffic jams directly cost about 2 percent from the city’s estimated GDP of $30 billion, according to an estimate given by V. Ravichandar, urban infrastructure expert and chairman at market researcher Feedback Consulting to Bloomberg. The actual cost of loss of slackened productivity, opportunity and health care caused by it can run its billions.
The contest, which closed last week, drew in more than a thousand teams from all over the world, not just India. Here are a few ideas that could put a permanent end to human's traffic misery that they have to go through unwantingly almost everyday.
Talking to Bloomberg, Akshay Rao, who works for Amazon in Seattle, has sent in his entry for the contest shared his solution. He suggests reforming the driver licensing system by creating incentives for the right road behaviour. He also proposes propagating timely information on public transport only made available to paid users.
There are several other applications suggesting incorporating the power of Internet of Things for solving the problem such as having IoT-powered road dividers that would be capable of changing orientation to handle changing traffic situations. There is also a solution proposing having a reporting system that can track vehicles that don’t comply to the road rules, a device that is capable of tracking social media to generate traffic leads and building a network of smart satellite townships that can ease the traffic flow on Bengaluru roads. There is also a suggestion for using cloud to make Bengaluru a traffic free city by helping the police in tackling traffic violators in the city and making them accountable.
The winner, which hasn't been announced yet, will get to walk away with a prize money of $5,500. But, one could say that if the contest is actually able to fix Bengaluru's traffic woes, it would be the city and its citizens who would be the real winners.
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