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Food for thought: the only reason traffic jams happen is because humans are imperfect creatures that can't maintain a uniform speed (barring a total-closure col

Food for thought: the only reason traffic jams happen is because humans are imperfect creatures that can't maintain a uniform speed (barring a total-closure collision or some other abnormal event). Imagine the impact on humans if traffic jams just vanished. Engineers have known for a while that even in the heaviest congestion (think 405 or 580) it's usually only a mistake by a driver that will completely stop traffic. I wouldn't mind an auto-drive that was just speed control, enforced in situations of congestion. Rather than one person braking too hard and completely stopping a mile of 880, everybody gets programmed to travel at a fixed speed. A lot of things to work out there, but if vehicles worked together with the road to maintain their own speed, traffic would be light years better.

tadfisher 14y ago
This can be solved on the cheap with pace cars, as used in several European countries.
aggie 14y ago
It's really a matter of slow and inconsistent reaction to changes in speed, not the change in speed itself. The delayed reaction of one car causes it to decelerate more then they would have had to, then for the car behind the impact is greater and so on. Simulations suggest that as little as 20% of vehicles having computer-controlled reactions (very fast) would just about eliminate these shockwave traffic jams. Related, see #6 in this article: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/06/03/magazine/innovations-issue.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/06/03/magazine/innov...