Researchers zero in on Tennessee's I-24 to study traffic jams

• Equipment has been installed along I-24 as part of the project.

Why it matters: The area, dubbed I-24 MOTION, will give researchers unprecedented insight into traffic and could steer different efforts to make our commutes a little less painful.

• "This thing is like an MRI, when the rest of the world is looking at traffic with an X-ray," Vanderbilt engineer Dan Work tells Axios.
• "It allows us to understand so much more about how human driving behavior can generate traffic jams."

Zoom in: About 300 pole-mounted sensors were installed along the area on I-24, known as the testbed, to generate anonymous traffic data. The testbed will allow researchers to understand how cars move through traffic with fine-point accuracy that is unavailable elsewhere.

• Work says one of the early areas of interest is "phantom traffic jams," when individual driver errors snowball until traffic is reduced to a glacial stop-and-go.

Driving the news: The first research project using the testbed took place last month, with support from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. departments of transportation and energy. It was led by a coalition of research institutions and agencies including Vanderbilt and the Tennessee Department of Transportation.

• Nissan North America was among multiple manufacturers that participated.
• Researchers deployed nearly 100 Nissan vehicles with AI technology that adjusts cruise control speeds based on surrounding traffic.
• Vehicle trajectory data drawn from the testbed will help measure if those cars have a ripple effect that helps ease traffic on a broader scale.

The intrigue: Work says the first study represents “the tip of the iceberg.”

• He says the testbed’s highly detailed, real-world data on the ways individual drivers move within traffic is a pioneering development that makes Nashville the epicenter of world-class research in this field.
• "It's basically going to help shed new insights into the nature of traffic jams that will eventually lead to better technologies to manage it."

What they're saying: "When it comes to transportation and mobility in Tennessee, we are at a critical juncture," deputy governor and TDOT commissioner Butch Eley said in a statement.

• "We are confident that this project and others like it will further strengthen Tennessee's reputation for being a hub of automotive excellence."

The bottom line: "I'm pumped," Work says.

• “I don't have to go to the other side of the planet to try to run traffic experiments."
• "We've got researchers from the other side of the planet coming to see us in Nashville, you know, working on problems here in Middle Tennessee."