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Traffic is caused by human error? I suppose flooding is caused by "water error", then? Traffic is caused by too many vehicles attempting to use a limited resou

by 100k 16y ago

Traffic is caused by human error? I suppose flooding is caused by "water error", then? Traffic is caused by too many vehicles attempting to use a limited resource at the same time. Driverless cars may make this more tolerable (certainly riding the bus does) but the idea that this will make traffic obsolete is laughable.

glhaynes 16y ago
I wonder if computer-controlled cars coordinating with each other (maybe not explicitly but using "swarming"-type schemes) could ease traffic congestion somewhat. But yeah, it'd only be somewhat, certainly not the end of traffic.
maweaver 16y ago
In my experience most traffic jams are caused by bad merging, not lack of capacity. A few years ago I regularly drove a stretch of road that went from 2 lanes to 3 for a few miles and then back again, without gaining a significant amount of traffic in between (I have no idea why the road was designed that way, maybe one of the side roads feeding into it got a lot of traffic at a different time of day or something). Every day there would be a traffic jam where the third lane ended. Someone waits too long to merge and traffic has to slow to let them in, or is nervous about moving over and has to be given space, or whatever, and it just compounds until traffic literally stops at that point. I see the same thing all the time at on/off ramps, turn lanes, etc.
- pavel_lishin 16y ago
  I've read several articles pointing out that traffic seems to be an emergent behavior, and can be predicted like the flow of a gas, regardless of the individuals involved.
- jimbokun 16y ago
  And this can vary based on driving culture. I commuted from NYC to NJ for a while (by circumstance, not choice) and traffic wouldn't slow much at all at merge points. Driving back in Pennsylvania, state of my birth, I was gob-smacked when people all tried to merge into one lane a mile before the merge point, bringing traffic to almost a complete halt. Of course, I was probably one of those people before driving in New York, and never thought much of it.
zasz 16y ago
We will probably never be able to get rid of traffic completely, but we could greatly increase the capacity of a road. If every car was driven by a robot, then the distance between cars could be much smaller than it is right now.
- RodgerTheGreat 16y ago
  Precisely. Traffic is not caused by human error, Traffic is made worse by the margins of safety required by human error. Take human reflexes and perception out of the equation and you don't eliminate the problem entirely, but you allow for increased efficiency.
artmageddon 16y ago
The truth is, we already have enough road. Compared to machines, our reaction times are very slow, and because of that we can't use them efficiently since we need to give each other space to slow down / change lanes. If the cars are able to communicate their intended destinations along with other things ("I'm speeding up, go" / "I'm slowing down, don't hit me" / "SYSTEM FAILURE") then we can pack more cars into the same amount of space.

by 100k 16y ago

glhaynes 16y ago

I wonder if computer-controlled cars coordinating with each other (maybe not explicitly but using "swarming"-type schemes) could ease traffic congestion somewhat. But yeah, it'd only be somewhat, certainly not the end of traffic.

maweaver 16y ago

In my experience most traffic jams are caused by bad merging, not lack of capacity. A few years ago I regularly drove a stretch of road that went from 2 lanes to 3 for a few miles and then back again, without gaining a significant amount of traffic in between (I have no idea why the road was designed that way, maybe one of the side roads feeding into it got a lot of traffic at a different time of day or something). Every day there would be a traffic jam where the third lane ended. Someone waits too long to merge and traffic has to slow to let them in, or is nervous about moving over and has to be given space, or whatever, and it just compounds until traffic literally stops at that point. I see the same thing all the time at on/off ramps, turn lanes, etc.

pavel_lishin 16y ago
I've read several articles pointing out that traffic seems to be an emergent behavior, and can be predicted like the flow of a gas, regardless of the individuals involved.
jimbokun 16y ago
And this can vary based on driving culture. I commuted from NYC to NJ for a while (by circumstance, not choice) and traffic wouldn't slow much at all at merge points. Driving back in Pennsylvania, state of my birth, I was gob-smacked when people all tried to merge into one lane a mile before the merge point, bringing traffic to almost a complete halt. Of course, I was probably one of those people before driving in New York, and never thought much of it.

zasz 16y ago

We will probably never be able to get rid of traffic completely, but we could greatly increase the capacity of a road. If every car was driven by a robot, then the distance between cars could be much smaller than it is right now.

RodgerTheGreat 16y ago
Precisely. Traffic is not caused by human error, Traffic is made worse by the margins of safety required by human error. Take human reflexes and perception out of the equation and you don't eliminate the problem entirely, but you allow for increased efficiency.

artmageddon 16y ago

The truth is, we already have enough road. Compared to machines, our reaction times are very slow, and because of that we can't use them efficiently since we need to give each other space to slow down / change lanes. If the cars are able to communicate their intended destinations along with other things ("I'm speeding up, go" / "I'm slowing down, don't hit me" / "SYSTEM FAILURE") then we can pack more cars into the same amount of space.