March Madness is famous for buzzer beaters, busted picks, and questionable logic. This year at INRIX, we tried something different: we let traffic signals decide the tournament.
As the NCAA tournament tipped off, I took a data‑driven detour from the usual gut‑feel bracket strategy. Instead of seeding teams by rankings or win–loss records, I asked a far more interesting question:
If basketball games were decided by urban signal density, who would win it all?
The Idea: A Signal‑Powered Approach
My approach was simple, creative, and very on‑brand for a company obsessed with how cities move.
For each major basketball campus, I calculated the number of traffic signals within a 2.5‑mile radius of the campus centroid. The rule was straightforward:
- More signals = advance to the next round
- Fewer signals = eliminated
In other words, the denser and more signal‑rich the campus environment, the stronger the team—at least in this bracket.
The result was a fully AI‑assisted, signal‑themed tournament simulation that favored urban campuses over sprawling ones, where land use and density mattered. Places with compact street networks and closely spaced intersections had a clear advantage.
Urban Campuses Rise to the Top
Early rounds played out exactly as the data suggested. Dense cities performed well. More spread‑out campuses struggled to keep up.
As the tournament narrowed, a clear pattern emerged: urban campuses consistently advanced.
That logic ultimately produced a final group that would look very different from most traditional predictions:
- St. John’s (New York City)
- University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia)
- Howard University (Washington, DC)
- University of Texas at Austin
Each of these campuses sits in or near a dense urban environment with a high concentration of signalized intersections—exactly the conditions this bracket rewarded.
The Numbers Behind the Finalists
When the signal counts were tallied, the differences were striking:
- University of Pennsylvania: 1,076 signals
- Howard University: 895 signals
- St. John’s: 667 signals
- UT Austin: 375 signals
With more than a thousand traffic signals within 2.5 miles of campus, the University of Pennsylvania emerged as the clear champion, taking the title in the signal‑powered experiment.
Philadelphia’s compact street grid and dense signal network proved unbeatable.
A Fun Result with a Serious Undercurrent
While this started as a fun tournament experiment, it highlighted something real about how cities are structured and why signal density matters.
Signal density is a proxy for:
- Urban compactness
- Intersection frequency
- Network complexity
- Operational demand on traffic systems
These are the same characteristics that make traffic signal analytics valuable in the real world.
And here’s the most fun twist of all.
A Perfect INRIX Ending
Every one of the final campuses in my experiment shares something else in common:
There are signals using INRIX Signal Analytics near each of these schools. It’s a coincidence, but a satisfying one. The same data that powers day‑to‑day decisions for agencies and cities also turned out to be good enough to crown a tournament champion.
Data Always Wins (Even in March)
No one is suggesting traffic signals should replace basketball skills anytime soon. But this exercise was a great reminder of what happens when you look at familiar events through a data lens.
Sometimes you get:
- A new perspective
- A surprising outcome
- And a little bragging rights when your bracket logic actually makes sense
And sometimes, you discover that urban density really does win championships—at least when traffic signals are calling the plays.
Current Status
As it turns out, I’m perfectly fine with my signal-powered bracket missing the mark. Both of my land-grant alma maters are still dancing this weekend—so I’ll happily trade model accuracy for school pride.