2015考研英语阅读理解精读P4—工学类.docVIP

2015考研英语阅读理解精读P4—工学类 Passage 4 　　Is sitting in traffic as inevitable as death and taxes? Perhaps not. Many countries now have dedicated traffic-monitoring centres linked to networks of cameras and sensors. Throw in traffic-spotting aircraft, accident reports and the known positions of buses fitted with satellite-positioning gear, and it is possible to see exactly what is happening on the roads. Drivers could switch from busy to quiet routes and avoid congestion if only they had access to this information. 　　And now they do. Systems such as the Traffic Message Channel and the Vehicle Information and Communication System (VICS), in Europe and Japan respectively, pipe data from traffic centres into in-car navigation systems via FM radio signals. Drivers can see where the traffic is and try to avoid it. Honda, a Japanese carmaker, even combines VICS data with position data from 150,000 vehicles belonging to members of its Premium Club so that they can choose the fastest lane on a congested road, says David Schrier of ABI Research, a consultancy. 　　Meanwhile ITIS, a British company, is one of several firms experimenting with mobile-phone signals to monitor traffic on roads that lack sensors or cameras. Its software hooks into a mobile operators network and uses a statistical approach to deduce traffic speeds as phones are handed off from one cell tower to another. The data must be cleaned up to exclude pedestrians and cyclists, but this idea has great potential, says Mr Schrier. 　　Another way to dodge traffic is to predict where and when it will form. In Redmond, Washington, at the headquarters of Microsoft, employees have been testing a traffic-prediction system called JamBayes. Users register their route preferences and then receive alerts, by e-mail or text message, warning them of impending gridlock. JamBayes uses a technique called Bayesian modelling to combine real-time traffic data with historical trends, weather information and a list of calendar events such a