The trouble with traffic reports is they're real-time at best: By the time you hear about the mess, you may well be sitting in it. It's often too late for you to change your route, much less decide to take the train or stay at home.

But transportation researchers at MIT and the University of Texas at Austin think they can predict where congestion will strike 30 minutes in advance. Two traffic forecasting programs (DynaMIT and DYNASMART-X) are being tested in Irvine, Calif., and neighboring Anaheim, where highways and secondary roads are equipped with embedded magnetic sensors that detect passing vehicles and their speed. Historical and real-time data from the sensors fuel the prediction programs.