I was hoping for a solution that can solve (or at least minimize) the problem between 6-9am and 4-7pm. I think there are a lot of short-lived local effects that can be avoided. For instance near my office is a government agency that quits work right at 5pm on the nose. If I leave one minute before 5pm it is smooth sailing, one minute after 5pm and traffic is snarled until 5:30pm or so. Also, as far as general commuting, the school start times are one major effect since these are local and hard set arrival times for the parents. A smart database could calculate these effects and other cross-interactions that really impact jams so a small change with x% of drivers can prevent avoid the log-jams or backups that take time to dissipate once they form. Perhaps the data could even be used to get schools with interfering traffic patterns to stagger their start time 30 minutes which could have a huge impact.
