Located in the dashboard of Lu Guanglong's Hyundai Elantra taxi, under the cassette player, is a black global positioning system [GPS] box. The GPS tracks every inch of the taxi driver's daily 125-mile journey through Beijing and transmits the information back to his taxi company. "It can see you. It knows where you are. It knows what you are doing," says Lu, 55.
As the Chinese government readies for next month's Olympics, it is depending on GPS systems like Lu's to avoid gridlock on the capital's roads. When Beijing upgraded its taxi fleet to yellow-striped Hyundai Elantras, Hyundai Sonatas, and FAW-VW Jettas starting in 2004, authorities asked all taxi companies to install GPS systems in the new taxis. Since then, the government has been using GPS systems in Beijing's 66,000 taxis to monitor the city's traffic flow.
It doesn't take a GPS or other newfangled gadget to figure out that Beijing has major congestion problems on its streets. To avoid embarrassing traffic jams during the Games, authorities on July 20 imposed draconian measures restricting the number of cars on the roads during the Olympics. The government also is encouraging people to use public transportation, including two newly opened subway lines.
Cutting Commute Times and Pollution
At the same time, Beijing is also quietly using the Olympics to jump-start a longer-term, high-tech solution for traffic jams: the fudong che or "floating car" program. The program [the name is a reference to taxis roaming around the city] takes real-time traffic data collected from GPS units in taxis, crunches it, then recommends to drivers the quickest route to their destinations.
"If the floating car can provide people with real-time traffic information, it will reduce traffic jams, lower environmental pollution, and conserve energy," says Wang Gang, director of the Beijing Municipal Transportation Information Center [BTIC], the government agency behind...

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