4 ms·
Yeah, Traffic Waves. There's no cure. They've been studied, documented, they have many causes but there's no way to get rid of them unless all the cars on the h
by ChrisNorstrom 13y ago
Yeah, Traffic Waves. There's no cure. They've been studied, documented, they have many causes but there's no way to get rid of them unless all the cars on the highway are autonomous and self correcting.
Once a highway increases past 2 lanes they are inevitable as people from the far left lanes have to merge right to get to their exit and the 2 right lanes than can normally hold 20 cars with a 1 car space in between all of them now have to cope with 35 cars. The cars in the left lane can't merge in time to get to their exit so the far left lanes start slowing down as well.
There are a LOT of causes, from bunching (cars driving too close together) to pattern breaking (cars slowing down to look a pulled over cop), to merging, to accidents, to bottlenecks, to over-crowded exits, etc...
The only way to provide some relief is for ALL drivers to travel in groups/packs with large gaps in between the groups/packs. The gaps can obsorb slow downs.
- covercash 13y ago>The only way to provide some relief is for ALL drivers to travel in groups/packs with large gaps in between the groups/packs. The gaps can obsorb slow downs. Whenever I'm stuck in Philadelphia traffic I try to do this and it seems to make a difference. I've even thought about getting a bunch of friends to all get on at different exits and do it simultaneously. The end goal being official "pace cars" coordinated by a central command center to alleviate stop & go traffic and keep everyone cruising at a constant speed. Needless to say, my mind wanders a lot when I'm stuck in traffic!
- refurb 13y agoI've actually done something similar. When in bad traffic i purposely drive so that i leave a large gap between me and the car ahead of me. I basically drive so that i have to do minimal accelerating/braking. Likely just a coincidnce, but it does seem to improve flow.
- covercash 13y agoAre you located in/around Philly? If so, I'd be interested in coordinating something on 476 or 422 one afternoon.
- refurb 13y agoNope! Bay area (which btw, does not have bad traffic relatively speaking; I've been in traffic jams in the NE and they are way worse, same with LA).
- sk5t 13y agoI do this when stuck in a jam with a manual transmission car. I'll just leave it in first and idle along at ~5 mph... this is slower than the momentary maximum ~15 mph "rubber band" speed but certainly feels like it smooths things out in the long term, and is a lot easier on my clutch foot.
- priscillasj 13y agoI've done this, too. Frankly I just feel better going a steady rate - even if it's 0.5 mph - rather than continuously stopping and starting. The cars behind me tend to disagree, and sometimes even honk ... even though the space ahead of me clearly only leads to a continued jam, and not open road.
- seanp2k2 13y ago>"but there's no way to get rid of them unless all the cars on the highway are autonomous and self correcting." Sure there is; teach everyone how to do race starts. I always get on it pretty hard coming away from a jam and hope that the person behind me does the same. It rarely ever happens, but I've had some people follow my lead. If people accelerated faster off the front, it'd move the wave back faster. How this might collide with a second wave is not something I've really considered.
- dwd 13y ago> The only way to provide some relief is for ALL drivers to travel in groups/packs with large gaps in between the groups/packs. The gaps can obsorb slow downs. You see this being done with traffic lights where the green lights are timed to move each group through subsequent sections. Cars that get too far ahead or behind the group get reformed into other groups when they come to a red.