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If you spent any time in your car this summer you probably sat in some traffic. Maybe you’re in a jam right now. If so, a study in an upcoming issue of Physical Review Letters might help pass the time. According to scientists, building new roads won’t make traffic any lighter. It could even make things worse. What might help, though, is shutting a few streets down.
Imagine that there are two routes that take you to work: one a long wide freeway and the other a short, narrow bridge. In this example, everyone’s drive time would be minimized if half the motorists took the bridge and the other half the highway. Of course nobody cares about minimizing the collective commute. Every driver wants to get there first. So some of the highway drivers will switch to the bridge, thinking that’ll be quicker. When the bridge backs up, some will head for the highway. The upshot of all this back-and-forth is that everyone’s commute takes longer—in real life, up to 30 percent longer, the physicists find. The solution, they say, is to close off a few carefully selected avenues to limit all that to-and-fro. With less choice, and less chaos, everyone moves faster. It sounds counterintuitive. But it could beep worth a try.
—Karen Hopkin
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5 Comments
Add CommentIn the age of web cams, traffic monitoring, IPhones, Blackberry, GPS with real time traffic, etc., we can or will or should be able to adjust to traffic--in advance. We will know if the shortest route will be the fastest before we have to detour between routes. With deference to Physical Review Letters perhaps this important new and developing parameter was not included in their model. Additional paths to ones destination may indeed be better!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is already in the Physical Review Letters on line (navigation: APS Home - Roll: in the left: The Price of Anarchy, September 4, 2008 Article : Ars Technica - click). The ideas that this article contains are illogic, and in addiction hints - with pardon of the word - communism and authoritarianism. This entire thing is irrelevant.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the real world traffic flows are hampered by collisions, stalled vehicles, police activities etc..
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf there is only one route and the flow stops, then everyone stops (including emergency vehicles).
A better way to improve traffic flow & safety (and reduce pollution) is to synchronize traffic signals to the current speed limit, so that drivers maintaining the speed limit will encounter a green light at the approach to each intersection.
Interesting. The traffic authority can fake traffic information so that selfish drivers choose their path for the benefit of the society.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTheres a proved theory where somebody brakes in heavy traffic( usually for no reason) , this causes a chain reaction which results in traffic jam mins later.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI thnk jams are caused by drivers pulling out too early to overtake and waiting too long to pull back in after doing so.