3 ms·

I've actually spent quite a bit of time pondering this. Here are my completely unscientific conclusions. Imagine a [moving] wall, on an interstate, moving at 3

by nwomack 16y ago

I've actually spent quite a bit of time pondering this. Here are my completely unscientific conclusions. Imagine a [moving] wall, on an interstate, moving at 30MPH. No matter what is happening behind this wall, it is impossible to maintain an average speed faster than the wall. You can try any amount of tricks to smooth out traffic, but it will be impossible to ever move past this wall. As long as there is a steady stream of traffic, no car will ever do more than 30MPH until this moving wall gets out of the way. So now let's, more realistically, replace the wall with a bunch of slow drives, and ask 2 important questions: 1. How to get out of this situation? -- We want these drivers to all SPEED UP! It's really as simple as this. Until these bottleneck drivers move out of the way, you can only smooth out traffic, but never increase the speed. 2. How to avoid this problem in the first place? -- In general, there will be some bottleneck. After too many cars are going through this bottleneck at once, there will be slowdown. Ideally, these bottlenecks should be identified and no more than the maximum amount of cars at a time should enter the bottleneck to decrease the speed of traffic. Of course, that's easier said than done, but I think the important thing to take away from my ramblings is this: The best way to get rid of a traffic jam is: if you are in the front of the pack and have a chance to accelerate, you should do so as quickly as possible. If everybody were to do this, average speed could then be increased.

wbeaty 16y ago
But note that there aren't any slowpokes here, instead, every single car is blocked by the car ahead of them. The people behind you think that you are the slowpoke driver. But nothing is blocking the traffic, instead the average speed of the long column of cars is determined by the spacing between cars, and that spacing is determined by psychology. In light traffic, some people go far faster than average, but nobody tries to stop them. When we arrive at heavy congestion, don't we suddenly decide to close up ranks to prevent aggressive drivers from passing, stop them from "cutting us off?" If everyone habitually blocks the speeders, then it means we've compressed the traffic pattern past the peak of maximum flow, and pushed it into the unstable realm of stop/go oscillations and standing waves or "ghost jams." Want jams to vanish? Then do as the pro truckers do and just freaking back off. Happily encourage other cars to merge ahead. (They're not "cutting you off," there's no such thing as "cutting you off." They're just trying to merge into the adjacent lane!) If traffic momentarily slows way down, everyone just make sure to keep an open space that allows merging, and you'll find that it speeds right back up again.

by nwomack 16y ago

wbeaty 16y ago

But note that there aren't any slowpokes here, instead, every single car is blocked by the car ahead of them. The people behind you think that you are the slowpoke driver. But nothing is blocking the traffic, instead the average speed of the long column of cars is determined by the spacing between cars, and that spacing is determined by psychology. In light traffic, some people go far faster than average, but nobody tries to stop them. When we arrive at heavy congestion, don't we suddenly decide to close up ranks to prevent aggressive drivers from passing, stop them from "cutting us off?" If everyone habitually blocks the speeders, then it means we've compressed the traffic pattern past the peak of maximum flow, and pushed it into the unstable realm of stop/go oscillations and standing waves or "ghost jams." Want jams to vanish? Then do as the pro truckers do and just freaking back off. Happily encourage other cars to merge ahead. (They're not "cutting you off," there's no such thing as "cutting you off." They're just trying to merge into the adjacent lane!) If traffic momentarily slows way down, everyone just make sure to keep an open space that allows merging, and you'll find that it speeds right back up again.