NUMBER crunching scientists at York University believe they may have cracked the problem of European city centre congestion - using music.

Firmly believing there's many a new tune played on an old fiddle, mathematicians say they can use existing traffic systems to provide a cheap solution to unlocking gridlocks and silencing car horns across the Continent.

Known as MUSIC - Management of traffic USIing flow Control - the high-tech system pioneered by the university-based York Network Control Group, is already in use in three major European cities, including York, Portugal and Thessaloniki in Greece.

And, following a huge investment by the European Union, if it proves successful the scheme could be adopted globally.

Music works by transforming fuming motorists, city centre snarl-ups, and temperamental traffic lights into simple computer calculations. These are all fed into a huge state-of-the-art computer simulation of each city - crammed with details of road layouts, bus lanes, pedestrian and vehicle numbers.

After thousands of swift calculations, Music is then simply plugged into the city's own computer-controlled traffic system, and left to sort everything out. The results, says independent traffic consultant Ian Routledge, are shorter delays and smooth-running traffic as signals work in harmony with each other to provide the best possible solution.

Mr Routledge believes Music provides a realistic answer to the growing demands of the world's road networks.

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