The next time you’re stuck in a traffic jam brought on by excessive snow and you tweet your complaints on your iPhone, you could be inadvertently almost as useful as a snowplow for getting those vehicles moving again. That’s implied by a new study by the University at Buffalo.
Researchers at the institution have found Twitter to be a surprisingly good source of accurate and up-to-date information about weather, road and highway conditions. The researchers have claimed, according to The Washington Post, that spontaneous tweets can provide reams of hyperlocal data that computers can use to better predict traffic patterns and maybe direct weather-stricken traffic.
The study’s lead author, Adel Sadek, commented that even relatively cursory tweets about the weather or roads can help in reporting conditions even more comprehensively than existing traffic- and weather-monitoring stations. This should hardly be overlooked when, according to Federal Highway Administration data, bad weather is considered responsible for over 20% of all vehicle crashes.
The researchers’ methodology involved analyzing tweets made from December 1 to 19, 2013, before comparing this data to that picked up by weather- and traffic-monitoring stations.