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Researchers in Beijing, one of the world’s most congested cities, implemented GPS tracking of taxicabs in an attempt to better understand the city’s traffic problems. Beijing is referred to as a virtual car park during the day, and in 2006, rush hour reportedly lasted for 11 hours every day. Traditional urban planning has failed to account for the massive population and commuting needs of residents, so researchers at Microsoft Research Asia decided to use GPS tracking technology to get a broader view of the problem and hopefully come up with some functional solutions.

The team used GPS technology to track 33 thousand Beijing taxicabs during 2009 and 2010. Instead of focussing on areas where congestion occurred, the researchers were more interested in studying the routes drivers are taking. “[Congested] road segments are only the appearance. They’re not the problem,” explained Yu Zheng, leading researcher. “We try to identify the true source of the problem in our work.”

The research team in Beijing hopes that, if successful, this method of urban planning and correction may be implemented in other high-traffic cities with a high volume of taxicabs. Beijing currently ranks fourth on the planet for most taxicabs. Other cities that may benefit from this kind of GPS tracking, include Moscow, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Tokyo, Bangkok and New York.

“I think this is an interesting direction, though I wonder to what extent the real problem in urban planning is not having the resources – money – to do anything about it,” offered Sam Madden, an associate professor at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Madden does give credit to Zheng for the impressive amount of data collected. However, due to his own resource limitations, Madden was only able to track tens of taxis in his area for a similar study.

Article Written by Marisa O’Connor