In welcome news for commuters, researchers have developed a forecasting algorithm which could help city planners improve traffic congestion. “Rather than using fixed equations for flow dynamics, we calibrate the model parameters directly from real-world traffic data,” says co-author Toprak Firat also from KHAS. D3M instead relies on data which are routinely collected by city planners, such as level of road congestion. It could also accurately represent the diverse traffic conditions of Istanbul, London, UK and New York City, USA in tests using real-world data. “The key breakthrough is that cities can now run sophisticated traffic simulations without needing expensive data collection,” says Eroğlu.