The next time a traffic jam materializes in front of you for no apparent reason, think about Japan. That’s where scientists have, for the first time, recreated “shockwave” traffic jams, in which one driver’s slowing down creates a ripple effect that moves backwards through traffic, grinding everything to a halt for miles. They say recreating the phenomenon successfully is the key to finding ways to defeat it.
Their experiment found that human error is a major cause of these most frustrating kinds of traffic jams (there are, of course, other causes). But if driver error is the source of the problem, don’t drivers also have the solution? Clive Thompson points to one idea, the classic “slow down and keep a constant speed” method, which seems to be effective in breaking these shockwaves. Any other solutions?
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Controlling Speed of traffic more efficiently during morning commutes, lowering speeds on interstates to 45 MPH, and then posting speed cameras to catch individuals who exceed those speeds during rush hours. Digital Signs would signal to drivers what the acceptable speed would be during these times. The farther out of downtown the higher the posted speed limits would be.
Automated driving, obviously. They’ve already made cruise control that maintains a set distance from the car in front of you, regardless of speed. When everyone starts using systems like these, the shockwaves will stop happening. They happen in the first place because one driver doesn’t pay attention until too late, or overreacts to something, or maybe has to avoid another driver who is being reckless. Things like cruise control systems that maintain a set distance are the most likely to smooth out these sorts of shockwaves and thus prevent jams.
For the first time?
get out.
I’ve done simulations of production lines demonstrating the same.
Keep a constant speed is key to production line loading. No one ever applied this to highway traffic before?
I agree with Michael, but there are steps right now that can be taken to help alleviate the problem. If you think about it, the roads are always packed at the physiologically worse times: in the morning when we are still trying to wake up and in the late afternoon, after a long days work.
I’m not suggesting Americans increase consumption of caffeine, but there might be practical ways to help solve this problem other than completely change the logistics of transportation we currently use and that could be by taking better care of our bodies so that we are more attentive and functional in these times.
Don’t worry about traffic on the roads though, where we’re going we don’t need any roads.
If this is new then the new part must be a specific visualization because traffic engineers started looking at lag times in driver reactions as soon as the first timed lights were introduced on Michigan Avenue in Detroit.
That was the era of time and motion study and engineers would use stop watches to time the lag in start up from a stop light.
Traffic jams are a symptom of more vehicles than the planned carrying capacity of the roads. In order to prevent traffic jams, one method is to reduce the number of vehicles. Imposing disincentives (taxation, congestion fees) is one way, but offering sensible alternatives (mass transit, a functional passenger rail system, telecommuting) is smarter.
Increased regulation would not work in practice. Regulation either requires more cops, which are an expensive kind of work force, or automated systems, which are sketchy from a legal point of view.
Technological solutions aren’t the way to go, either. They are predicated on the assumption that all (or enough) drivers would adopt this technology, which will be expensive and error-prone, and possibly encourage risky behavior.
It’s funny (to me) that the first two posts didn’t even mention mass transit. Does interacting with other humans sound *that* painful?
If traffic engineers started looking at similar problems that long ago, then they are not that good at solving the problem.
I’d go further with the “you” in the title. What causes car jams is the fact that so many people decide to put their 70kg of flesh into the car’s 1t of metal and plastic, for individual transportation. I never learned how to drive and buying a car is simply not in my plans. My calculation is simple: one further car on the street is one further car jamming the street. That’s why I try to live always near everything, so I can do most necessary things walking.