Pokémon Traffic Flow

A two minute thought about transport in the city

Yesterday, I turned left instead of right. I could have gone either way, but I chose left — against my usual habit at that junction — because there were Pokestops to be visited.

Yeah, okay, I’m a big loser and la la la.

But the point is that I chose one route over the other, and as I did so it occurred to me that a Pokémon GO-like mechanism would work to govern traffic flow and congestion in a big city. A real-time congestion map plus SatNav plus a route-aware system of incentives equals people fluidly following the least congested and most collectively helpful and positive routes to their destinations. A range of options — speed, serendipity, maximising collection of bonuses — would see drivers (or self-driving vehicles) reaching their end points faster and could steer them away from smogging up schools at drop-off and pickup, or getting caught in a snarl of rage-inducing tailbacks.

You’d have to manage the incentivisation carefully to avoid actually causing people to go for a drive instead of diminishing the number of trips.

You’d have to design the thing so that it wasn’t a distraction.

You’d want it built from the beginning with privacy in mind.

You’d need good information, accurate-enough location finding even in built-up areas and a high level of buy-in from road users.

You could produce versions for pedestrians, public transport and cyclists.

Eventually you’d want to take it nationwide for longer trips and ultimately continental.

But it would work.