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"A team at Google's research arm used Google Maps to reroute a small portion of drivers in 10 U.S. cities," reports SFGate — including San Francisco and Los Angeles. "Through their experiment, which was published in the journal Nature Cities in June, the researchers sought to evenly spread traffic down more corridors as the drivers head to similar destinations, in the hopes of reducing congestion." The experiments nudged up vehicle speeds by 2% on average on the congested roads, and shortened travel times by a modest 0.7%. Scientists have long thought that traffic could be eased this way, and this now demonstrates how it could actually work in the real world. The researchers collected data on weekdays in the 10 cities, which included Seattle, Salt Lake City, Chicago and Atlanta. While they studied a variety of types of roads, from city streets to highways, they found that in cities such as Los Angeles where they targeted highways, their diversions had the biggest effect, with driving speeds in those areas increasing by about 4.6%. Most cities, though, saw a smaller improvement with speeds across them increasing by just 0.5% during peak times. The Google study's findings confirm what other researchers have long suspected, said Michael Manville, a professor of urban planning at UCLA who was not involved in the study. "This is a pretty nice empirical illustration of a longstanding idea," he said. If a clogged traffic artery is on the verge of a long delay, he said, rerouting a small number of vehicles away from the bottleneck produces a "not gigantic but noticeable result...." As with other traffic interventions, there's a risk that Google's approach to spreading traffic could backfire. This concept, known as "induced demand," also applies to efforts like adding a lane to a critical highway, which temporarily relieves congestion, until traffic rises again. "You can do this, but you cannot be too successful, because if you are too successful, then more people will start driving, and essentially you'll be back to ground zero," [said Alexandre Bayen, a co-author of the study and director of UC Berkeley's Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society]. "That's why when we did the study, we only operated at the margin." The idea is to make minor improvements, enough to matter in the aggregate but not so significant that people notice and start driving more, canceling those improvements... The Google Research study also considered the potential environmental benefits of its traffic improvements. The paper highlights the carbon dioxide emission reductions resulting from the slightly smoother traffic flow and shortened travel times, which add up to a savings of about 1,000 metric tons annually. That's equivalent to the emissions of about 200 vehicles, a drop in the bucket for cities with millions of cars, the majority of which are still gas guzzlers, even in San Francisco and LA. Bayen acknowledges that while emphasizing the cumulative benefit if such efforts were sustained for a longer time. For Manville, the study is a useful proof of concept. "It is a demonstration that if we managed roads better, air would probably be cleaner," he said. According to the article, "Google's study might not just be a one-off, and city officials could decide to make use of the Google research findings, Bayen said, such as by trying to improve traffic congestion on a larger scale..." "Google declined SFGATE's requests for comment on whether the company informed city authorities or rerouted drivers about the study," the article points out.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The four-time Grand Slam champion has dominated headlines at Flushing Meadows all week with a string of unconventional runway-inspired outfits.

The managing director said that the error was a 'mistake'

The Essex County Council leader said it has “succeeded in curtailing the Government's plans” with its legal challenge against local government reorganisation.

The Essex County Council leader said it has “succeeded in curtailing the Government's plans” with its legal challenge against local government reorganisation.

Layne Arthur Lundeen, 67, who had to be duct-taped to his first class American Airlines seat on Thursday night allegedly flipped out mid-flight after talking about religion.

Hazel sits in my office for our first appointment. The 16-year-old adjusts her red glasses, her brown eyes looking intently at me.

Sir David Davis said leading Special Air Service (SAS) troops were signing off due to persecution from lawyers which he warned would 'compromise' the UK's national security.

The 32-year-old pop star and 29-year-old skincare beauty founder shared a series of snaps with the glossy and answered questions in an accompanying interview.

Pamela Anderson has recalled the time she was given '10 years to live' when she was diagnosed with hepatitis C.

The Brave web browser published a new round of benchmarks claiming its desktop browser uses less system resources than Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Firefox — and also loads pages faster. The blog Linuxiac reports: According to Brave's testing, the browser used 44% less CPU, 28% less memory, and 10% less energy on average compared with the three competing browsers. It also completed page loads 20% faster while transferring 26% less inbound data and 39% less outbound data... - Brave averaged about 33% CPU usage, while Chrome used 47%, Edge 53%, and Firefox 78%. - For memory, Brave used about 1.2 GB, compared to 1.75 GB for Chrome, 1.62 GB for Edge, and 1.65 GB for Firefox. By stopping ads, analytics scripts, tracking pixels, and other third-party requests from loading, the browser has less network traffic and less work to do. In page-loading tests, Brave took about 4.4 seconds to fully load a page. Chrome took 5.1 seconds, Firefox 5.3 seconds, and Edge 6 seconds. However, when measuring Largest Contentful Paint, which is when the main content appears, Brave and Chrome both averaged about 2.4 seconds, with Edge and Firefox just behind at 2.5 seconds. This means Brave's main advantage comes after the main content is visible, since there are fewer background ads, trackers, analytics requests, and delayed scripts to process.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Resistance is futile

Katie Holmes looked totally smitten with much-younger love Jason Bard Yarmosky as the pair holidayed in Lake Como recently.

One of Stephen Lawrence's racist murderers may have to admit being at the scene of the killing if he wants to be freed.

Bedfordshire and Luton coroner Emma Whitting damning ruling said officers' failures to recognise escalating domestic abuse 'materially contributed' to Sarah Abalone's 'unlawful killing.

In an unprecedented letter to senior royal representatives, government and military officials, Charles appeared to put the Sussexes firmly in their place.

The Prime Minister is close to agreeing a package of measures that is expected to agree a ban on imports from goods produced in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

George Desmond Kamurasi, who captains the SE Dons in Bexleyheath, south-east London, has unexpectedly been chosen as the next ruler of the Tooro Kingdom.

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW BY LAWRENCE BOOTH: It's possible no English summer has generated as many uses of the phrase 'the penny has dropped' than 2026, but for Duckett it feels more than a cliche.

Russell now has to grab his boss Toto Wolff by the neck to assert himself, and/or seek a way out of Mercedes. Or to accept that he will be a de facto No2 for the rest of his career.