Controlled traffic.

Yawn, heard it. I swear this one is some civic planning major's dream child. BTdubs, I figured out how to make that punctuation fly. Suck it blogspot! Or rather, thank you for making this available in some fashion?

Anyways. Controlled traffic. Same premise as air traffic controllers and airplanes, just integrated into a functional and practical way for people and their cars. It would require COMPUTERS. One in each car, which basically does the driving and is centrally monitored and controlled by a hub. Now, there's the whole "SkyNet has become self aware" stuff, but that's outside the scope of this post. See, I stay on topic, I don't ramble like some punks. (Watch out, I ramble a LOT).

Anyways, the hub controls the flow of traffic, there's no more gridlock, rubbernecking, nervous lane changers jockeying for position; all that gets wiped away. Check out youtube for "accordion effect" in traffic scenarios.

The incentives? Why the F should I relinquish control of MY automobile?
1. You get to read and check your email and talk on the phone! Risk free! (Mostly. SkyNet could wake up...)
2. MAJOR savings in gas and emissions: MPG would skyrocket with a steady speed, and highways and major thoroughfares would have few if any starts and stops.
3. Everybody gets there faster (on average). It's still possible the speed demons would be slowed. But a solution for that:
4. Sell different tiers of speed and traffic passes, just like the EZ-Pass toll scanners. In DA FUTURE there would even be a level where sports cars would have permission to whip through traffic, gaps between cars, and go on ridiculous joyrides. Their cars would be monitored and prevented from crashing, sort of an invisible hand guiding it through traffic, but the driver would have a lot of control over the way the car drives and maneuvers, giving him the illusion of complete control. With sports cars being developed to the level of formula-1 performance, there's no reason why a Ferrari owner couldn't blaze over long highway stretches and be slowed down remotely and steered before disaster.

It's really not that much farther stretched in concept than the way trains and airplanes are centrally monitored and controlled. Only now and IN DA FUTURE will we have the computers to do it. This wouldn't be a paradigm shift in the design, manufacture, and infastructure of personal transportation. It would really just look like each car having an extra computer module, connectivity with a satellite to a government-regulated control system, along with a radar system for detecting unexpected objects.

Ok, integration with existing infastructure MIGHT take a while, but what will this really look like? Duh! Designated HOV lanes. Let's call it SkyBoss. I like that.

First, 2 out of 5 lanes on the highway would be for SkyBoss cars only. Eventually it would be 4 out of 5 lanees, or 12 out of 15, whatever our highway systems turn out to be. Turn on your SkyBoss mode, switch lanes, and let the computer take over. When your exit comes up, switch out of that mode, merge to the other lanes, exit the highway.
How to enforce that deisgnation? Easy! Money. Put a camera every 1000 feet (a webcam with a solar panel mounted to the median - it would cost $0.75 to make) to monitor those lanes and read license plates. If you're in the lane in an antiquated vehicle, you get a $500 fine.
The whole self-aware government-controlled-tragic-highway-accident-elimination-of-undesired-individuals-made-easy program would begin on our highways and state routes. Maybe it would never reach into the small suburbs and back roads in its fullest form, but just maybe you could still check your email (risk free!) on your morning commute through town with SkyBoss just keeping your car at pace with the stop and go traffic, regardless of whether anyone else around you has it.

Hell, Google already has practically the whole of the civilized world mapped out in Street View. You think this stuff is really that far off? Give it til 2025, at the latest.