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Here an issue is that if all people started using navigation to go via low traffic routes they would clog them and make them high traffic. There is probably som

Here an issue is that if all people started using navigation to go via low traffic routes they would clog them and make them high traffic. There is probably some optimal equilibrium but by the time it is reached the rush hour could well have already passed.

necovek 5y ago
A central navigation hub could decide to direct appropriate proportion of drivers a particular way. Still, the problem is not which routes are least loaded, but how to get people to most efficiently drive en masse. It is more efficient for everyone to wait ahead of the intersection than to enter it and possibly clog it, yet when others clog it from a different direction, you get stuck. It takes only a few people not driving in everyone's best interest (including their own) for traffic jams to become worse. And with speed limits, traffic lights and other, non-car traffic (pedestrian/bicycle crossings with and without traffic lights), the problem quickly becomes hard, even for a central navigation hub (eg. there is a long street here that I can go through entirely in 2-3 minutes if everybody is driving at 10-15km/h faster than the speed limit: at the speed limit, you hit at least two traffic lights and spend 5-10 minutes in it). Problem is likely mathematically solvable only when such a hub drives the cars too.
- axelroze 5y ago
  > Problem is likely mathematically solvable only when such a hub drives the cars too. The great promise of self-driving cars of the future. Personally I am super stoked for these. All the comforts of a private vehicle with (almost) all the benefits of public transit. I am not sure if we need central planning or the 'market' will solve the problem itself. I guess in a fully coherent world of cars some central hub with fair round robin uniform priorities would be best. In reality it is more likely that multiple competitors will arise (Tesla, Uber, Waymo) and we will not have central planning.
  - necovek 5y ago
    Oh, no disagreement there (though I do enjoy driving, and turning it into an optimization problem too :)). I was mostly debating the OP's claim of how to solve it mathematically. With smarter, self-driving cars, it's likely enough to solve the problem "locally", for a sufficiently large definition of "local" :) I am not convinced we'll get to self-driving cars that can navigate the real world obstacles anytime soon, though. Like barrels falling off a truck in front of me on the highway. Or a sideway collision that has almost blocked the road. Unless the self-driving tech is trained in Mario Kart, it will take a while :D

necovek 5y ago

A central navigation hub could decide to direct appropriate proportion of drivers a particular way. Still, the problem is not which routes are least loaded, but how to get people to most efficiently drive en masse. It is more efficient for everyone to wait ahead of the intersection than to enter it and possibly clog it, yet when others clog it from a different direction, you get stuck. It takes only a few people not driving in everyone's best interest (including their own) for traffic jams to become worse. And with speed limits, traffic lights and other, non-car traffic (pedestrian/bicycle crossings with and without traffic lights), the problem quickly becomes hard, even for a central navigation hub (eg. there is a long street here that I can go through entirely in 2-3 minutes if everybody is driving at 10-15km/h faster than the speed limit: at the speed limit, you hit at least two traffic lights and spend 5-10 minutes in it). Problem is likely mathematically solvable only when such a hub drives the cars too.

axelroze 5y ago
> Problem is likely mathematically solvable only when such a hub drives the cars too. The great promise of self-driving cars of the future. Personally I am super stoked for these. All the comforts of a private vehicle with (almost) all the benefits of public transit. I am not sure if we need central planning or the 'market' will solve the problem itself. I guess in a fully coherent world of cars some central hub with fair round robin uniform priorities would be best. In reality it is more likely that multiple competitors will arise (Tesla, Uber, Waymo) and we will not have central planning.
- necovek 5y ago
  Oh, no disagreement there (though I do enjoy driving, and turning it into an optimization problem too :)). I was mostly debating the OP's claim of how to solve it mathematically. With smarter, self-driving cars, it's likely enough to solve the problem "locally", for a sufficiently large definition of "local" :) I am not convinced we'll get to self-driving cars that can navigate the real world obstacles anytime soon, though. Like barrels falling off a truck in front of me on the highway. Or a sideway collision that has almost blocked the road. Unless the self-driving tech is trained in Mario Kart, it will take a while :D