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A simple and effective way of dissolving a traffic jam is to keep going at the same speed - let me explain: You see congestion up ahead, and you slow down to,
by mixmax 18y ago
A simple and effective way of dissolving a traffic jam is to keep going at the same speed - let me explain:
You see congestion up ahead, and you slow down to, say, 40mph. This creates some room in front of you in anticipation of the inevitable braking. You then drive through the traffic jam at a constant speed with no acceleration or deceleration, and the people behind you will have no choice but to follow (or change lanes which is the weak point of the solution) What you will see at the other end (if you could go back and look) is that you have dissolved the jam because you have prevented people from decellerating quickly and accelerating slowly.
Several people have tried this successfully and it works.
- boredguy8 18y agoIt's really fun when 3 or 4 people all know and do the same thing. It solve the 'weak point' and once or twice I've been part of a 'team' that cleared a jam that way. It's a weird sort of rush.
- swdesignguy 18y agoThis reminds me of an old episode of Scientific American Frontiers. http://www.pbs.org/saf/transcripts/transcript904.htm#5 http://www.pbs.org/saf/transcripts/transcript904.htm#5
- boredguy8 18y agoThanks for the link. I believe it was this episode that influenced a lot of how I drive (merging, staying slow but consistent in stop-and-go traffic, &c). It should be required watching for new drivers.
- babul 18y agoMany of the research projects into automated highways concluded essentially the same thing and that average journey times could be significantly reduced, and propagation delays effectively removed, by everyone travelling at near similar constant speed. The problem however is not everyone will do this e.g. some people simply love to speed, and changing behaviour in people is harder than changing the rules they should follow. Some of the projects successfully proved the concept in real world usage of the technology, but issues due to insurance (who will be liable in case of accidents) and infrastructure cost seem to be the main barriers at present.