
Unintended road experiments – how kids cause traffic - winslett
https://medium.com/@winslett/unintended-road-experiments-a-closed-day-afc8d9d27d5d
======
S_A_P
My first thought is that this guy has not lived in a populated city during
rush hour. Growing up in Houston, its a part of life. As soon as school is
out, traffic is reduced by at least 1/3-1/2 on major freeways according to my
built in road rage o meter. In suburban hubs, traffic is reduced in the
evenings as well but that is more static throughout the year. Just recently
during spring break my commute halved in terms of minutes in the car. I see
other problems with his "study" as well, since it was a state of emergency,
other people stayed home as well since they anticipated terrible weather, so
as a datapoint its not very useful.

------
Doctor_Fegg
Without wanting to sound too snarky - no kidding, Sherlock.

Anyone who drives at rush hour in the summer months, when (UK, at least)
schools are on holiday, will know how much quieter the roads are. Come
September, and it's back to the jams.

~~~
wink
I don't buy that argument completely. Where I went to school, not so many kids
were driven to school by car (and much less drove there themselves) - but
during the 6 weeks summer vacation _everything_ was a bit quieter, not only
during rush hour. But also most people with kids spent their summer vacation
away during that time. And also some amount of people without kids still want
to use that time for vacation.

~~~
emodendroket
Even if no parents drove their children anywhere the buses everyone has to
stop for are a big disruption.

~~~
Naritai
I don't think the author is asserting it's really driving kids around that
causes the traffic. Rather, it's that all parents _need_ to leave their work
at (say) 5 in order to get home for their kids.

~~~
wink
I was not disputing what the author wrote, but what the parent to which I
replied posted.

In my example, school ended at 1pm or 3 pm, I'd wager not many parents came
home, unless they were working part-time or were stay-at-home. I doubt this
has changed so much in the last 15 years (since I graduated) although they've
switched to 1 year less (so longer lessons) but they're switching back.

I simply think that "one American town with ~200k people" is not a very good
data point. Also, I have no clue how school in the UK works, maybe people are
driving their children to school everyday. :)

------
mikeash
"People without kids were largely unaffected."

Oh _really?_

The only conclusion supported by the data is that the threat of severe weather
alleviates traffic. Pinning it on kids, just because _most_ of the people _the
author knows_ still went to work, is nonsense.

I'd assume this article was satire, but it's written with such sincerity that
I don't think it is.

~~~
winslett
I do recognize I have large gaps of data missing. This was written as a
hypothesis on travel and randomness. To support kids activities in a southern
US city, random time/source/destination of drivers is removed. Most people
have to drive to the same location at the same time to send their kids to
school or other activities. Thus, the event yesterday added more randomness to
the travel patterns by removing the kids activities.

I don't have real-time flow of all data, thus I could be completely wrong. All
I have for traffic data is a few Google traffic maps.

~~~
mikeash
The data is so sparse that we have no idea if the kids were indeed the
critical factor, or if they were completely irrelevant and the change was due
to something else entirely. It doesn't really read as a hypothesis with
statements like "People without kids were largely unaffected."

On a somewhat different note, it may not be the same there, but around here
(Fairfax County, near DC), school opening times are staggered fairly
substantially in order to make better use of the bus fleet. Schools here start
anywhere from 7:10AM to 9:20AM. This will also spread out car traffic, not
that the school district does that intentionally.

------
jmts
The amount of ridicule for this post seems rather surprising. This guy had a
curiosity and he wanted to quantify it. I'm sure everybody knows that traffic
is reduced when school is out. Why should that stop someone from asking why,
by what magnitude, and what other interesting things occur during this time?
I'd hazard a guess that everybody in the 1600's knew that apples fell to the
ground. It took Newton to ask why.

~~~
winslett
Ha! Thanks :)

The "genius class" on YCombinator isn't my intended audience. Those folks can
go jump off a cliff.

My intended audience is the average person who jumps in a car and drives
without thinking what is beyond the windshield. I think these people are
interesting because they are making to-the-second economic decisions while
driving. Given that:

* road space is a fixed asset

* information about upcoming road conditions is uncertain

* people can use devices to gather best-effort information from Google

* a driver can only choose one route

* the choices drivers collectively makes a market

* drivers choose to be risker to save time

The write up today is really just a foundational observations.

Cheers, Chris

------
drtz
I'm sure the author's conclusions have some merit, but the reduction in
traffic likely also has a lot do with the fact that a lot of parents who would
otherwise be working during the day are instead staying home with their kids.

------
jressey
Oh really?! Cancelling a bunch of peoples' normal activities so they don't
have to travel to them reduces traffic.

This argument is a tautology.

------
emodendroket
Hm, next this guy should look into sporting events.

~~~
brudgers
The author mentions Auburn and Alabama football games in the final paragraph.
That's the gridiron pointy ball football not _o jogo bonito_.

------
emj
Given that "traffic problems are caused by a very slight increase in the
amount of cars" it's very obvious why things got calmer if a small portion of
the work force had to change their routine.

If you are stuck in traffic you have only yourself to blame, you are the
traffic.

------
Pxtl
"I can't let my kid walk to school, it's too dangerous with all the traffic
out there".

