Audi tracks cities with most frustrated drivers, in real-time

We know that commuting in the city can be a major pain. Despite our knowledge that the long, frustrating commute can have negative impacts on our health, we do it anyway.

With Audi's Real Frustration Index we get a real-time snapshot of driver frustration in U.S. cities, and an idea of what we're getting ourselves into before we leave for our morning commute.

Developed with MIT's Senseable City Lab, the tool determines frustration based on four factors: weather, traffic incidents, reactions to traffic from twitter (by searching for tweets with terms like "traffic jam" and "stuck"), and the amount of traffic.

Check out Boston late Sunday night:

Despite relatively few traffic problems and ideal weather, Bostonians were complaining about traffic, and it pushed up their score at a time when you would think the roads should be quiet.

The tool is part of an advertising campaign for the new Audi 6. And while it will be helpful for drivers to see what's in store for them, adding more cars to the road won't help decrease frustration levels, no matter how intelligent the car is. If Audi wants to do that it should advocate for better mass transit options.

[h/t Fast Company]

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com