We recently covered a story on anticipating subway delays with a crazy new European algorithm. Sweden has technology that can do the job pretty well.

Now, New York City will be one of three guinea pigs for basically the same idea-- but for the streets.

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx announced on Monday that New York City will receive upwards of $20 million for development and testing of new "smart vehicle" technology.

According to Crain's New York, "As many as 10,000 cars, yellow taxis, buses and trucks are to be retrofitted with the sensory devices in New York by 2017, allowing anonymous vehicle-to-vehicle communication to avert crashes."

As mentioned above, the idea is to generate a data exchange between vehicles to facilitate easy traffic flow and avoid accidents. It's a cool idea that sounds like something from a car commercial out of The Jetsons.

Even better, a mobile app is potentially in the works to help pedestrians stay up to date with the same info used to help motorist traffic move smoothly.

We can expect to collect traffic data from Midtown Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn. 

Elsewhere in the country, "the system also will be tested in Tampa, Florida, and around Wyoming to vary traffic conditions in which the technology operates."

Check out What If the MTA Could Predict Subway Delays Up to 2 Hours Before They Happen?

[via Crain's]