Picture a rainy Friday afternoon, streets clogged by commuters and shoppers entombed in crawling fogged-up cars and buses. It sounds familiar to any unhappy driver but soon will be accomplished indoors and without a car in sight.
Virtual Dublin, a Trinity College project backed by Dublin Corporation, aims to create a virtual simulation of Dublin's streetscape and traffic flows (or lack of them). To make it authentic, pedestrians will be added. It will put the capital's streetscape into a computer, accessible only to cyber commuters.
The project is a collaboration between Dr Carol O'Sullivan, head of image synthesis group, and Dr Vinnie Cahill, head of the distributed systems group, both at Trinity College.
The team has developed a virtual city and is now at work developing a virtual model of Dublin based on GIS (Geographical Information System) maps and data from Dublin Corporation. By this autumn, a full working walkthrough model complete with thousands of cars and pedestrians will be up and running.
Eventually a user will be able to drive though the virtual city, allowing a person to experience the full range of emotions (frustration and road rage) associated with trying to navigate our capital city.
The potential of the project to solve the city's traffic problems is literally out of this world. Instead of using Dublin itself as a laboratory to try out new initiatives such as traffic-light co-ordination in the city, the model will allow the simulation of the changes without disrupting the city. Dr O'Sullivan says the model will definitely allow for a closer analysis of traffic problems in the city. It will be able to use past or current data and will mirror the city's behaviour exactly at any given time on any day. The system will also factor in the effects of weather and lighting conditions and will throw pedestrians into the mix.
Construction of the Luas and the metro promise traffic chaos for the city, but Virtual Dublin could be used to see how digging up certain streets on a specific week of the year might affect traffic flows. Dr Cahill has already developed a computer application which allows Dublin Corporation to view a computer-generated map of the city's traffic flows as they happen.
A website has also been developed which will soon allow the general public to view how much traffic there is on their route to or from any location in the city. The project awaits private funding from companies or investors to bring it to its full potential.
At the moment there are five academic staff, six post-graduate students and five under-graduates working on the Virtual Dublin project.
The model could be sued to improve road safety by testing different driving scenarios for example at an accident black spot. Various weather conditions could be added to develop theories on why some intersections are more dangerous than others.
Dr O'Sullivan believes the technology might also help people who are prone to crashes. By using eye-tracking technology, the simulator would be able to observe where a person is looking - or not looking - while driving. This could help pinpoint the driver's blind spots and what might contribute to their crashes.
Film directors using Dublin as a location could also use Virtual Dublin to simulate a building blowing up or a person jumping out of a window without actually having to do the stunt. A similar computer-based approach was used to populate an imaginary computer-generated Titanic in the recent blockbuster film.
Dr O'Sullivan says commercially the project could prove very useful to retailers to assess the best location for a new store by judging where people walk, drive or park their cars most regularly. By simulating the pattern of traffic, the model could also be used for predicting where pollution might collect. Ultimately, he would like to see the establishment of a national driving centre which applies the latest technology and simulators. A comprehensive computer model would help urban planning, road safety and improve traffic strategies.