Driverless cars? They’re coming, but big data is already shaping traffic


Hunter

Transportation researcher Michael Hunter says driverless cars are coming to our roads, whether we’re ready for them or not. But already, our cars are generating some of the mountains of data coming from our transportation systems.

In an interview with Georgia Public Broadcasting, Hunter said drivers must be ready for cars beside them to operate without people behind the wheel.

"Are you as a driver willing to be driving in a car next to a car which is being autonomously driven?" asked Hunter, director of the Georgia Transportation Institute and an associate professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. "So we need to be thinking about how are people — users, drivers — going to react to that driverless car."

But Hunter said even before we get to those issues, transportation system managers and researchers have much more data than they’ve ever had before to help keep people moving.

"The data exists in a way it just didn't ten years ago," he said.

Read more from GPB’s Renay San Miguel.