
Scientists present concept for the elimination of traffic jams - dnetesn
https://techxplore.com/news/2018-08-scientists-concept-traffic.html
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MBlume
This is not a new idea, it's called congestion pricing, and it's already in
use in London.

No matter what we do, a road is a limited resource. Only so many vehicles can
use it per hour. We allocate that resource to those most willing to pay for
it, but right now that payment doesn't take the form of money, it takes the
form of time, frustration, of the amount of pain drivers are willing to endure
to use the road. The trouble with this sort of payment is that it's not a
transfer, it's just a loss. The time and energy these drivers use to get
through the traffic jam is simply destroyed. In short: a traffic jam is a
bread line. By measuring willingness to pay in dollars rather than in hours,
we avoid that loss. The money collected can be used. It can be used to
maintain the roads, to build transit, or simply redistributed to users in the
form of tax cuts.

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brudgers
And Atlanta for the express lanes.

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MBlume
The important thing about congestion pricing is that it makes mass transit
competitive. There are buses you can take out of San Francisco into
Oakland/Berkeley/El Cerrito right now, but they have to wait in the same
traffic as everyone else, they suffer huge delays, and they're a miserable
experience. With congestion pricing, those buses can move faster. With
congestion pricing, you don't have buses with 50 people on them waiting behind
a line of cars and SUVs each carrying a single driver.

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gowld
A dangerous thing about congestion pricing is that it incentivized government
to run as a business that caters to its paying customers -- making premium
product to serve only the wealthy, and ignore the working classes

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aeternus
Even that incentive may be good for society overall though. Efficient
transportation is not a zero-sum game. There are currently people sitting in
traffic who are willing & able to pay more not to sit in traffic.

By building systems which allow those people to pay more, then reinvesting
that revenue in transportation improvements, everyone can benefit.

Of course we need to be careful not to create a premium-only product, but some
balance should be achievable.

~~~
brudgers
There's no economically rational incentive to spend congestion pricing revenue
on measures that reduce congestion. To maintain a constant revenue stream,
congestion pricing has to rise as congestion decreases...like cigarette taxes
congestion pricing is a tax scheme incentivized to become increasingly
regressive.

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danieltillett
Toll roads increase the value of land closer to where jobs are at the expense
of land further out. Guess where the rich and powerful live (and own land) and
guess where the poor and marginalised live.

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MBlume
The solution to this problem is to upzone that land so that more people can
live there. If more people wind up living close to their jobs, that's a good
thing. Commutes are bad for workers and bad for society.

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deathanatos
You explicitly mention SF in your other comment; I agree that proper zoning
and getting people to live near to where they work is a better solution (or,
better mass transit in lieu or in addition to that), but attempting to
convince SF and the Bay Area that has been an uphill, losing battle thus far.

But that upzoning is a better solution doesn't negate the argument that
congestion pricing hurts the wrong set of people.

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njarboe
If the Boring Company is successful, the tolls for using the first tunnels
will be used to build more and eventually everyone will have a low-cost toll
tunnels to use.

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brudgers
The scheme creates the perverse incentive of traffic jams as a source of
government revenue -- incentives similar to speed traps. Even better it's able
to scale to hundreds or thousands of imposed charges per hour, doesn't require
staff, and individual drivers can't challenge it in court as would be the case
with a traffic ticket. As a public policy proposal, it's a regressive tax
designed to keep those without financial means out of the way of those for
whom congestion pricing is but a trifle. Starting the sentence with
"scientists" doesn't make it science. It is there to create an undeserved aura
of inevitability to ordinary horseshit.

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CryptoPunk
Exactly the same thing applies to the gas tax. This has the benefit of
increasing the efficiency of vehicle commuting, which means less pollution,
and less time and gas wasted sitting in traffic. Carpoolers will be taxed
significantly less than single occupancy vehicles. Electric vehicles will be
taxed just as much gasoline-powered ones. It is tax that charges people for
the scarce public resource they use, rather than charging them for use of a
private resource that acts as a proxy for use of that public resource.

The biggest concern I have with it is privacy, but that could be addressed by
consciously designing it to not disclose personally identifiable information
(this could be done with zero-knowledge proofs).

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mc32
>dynamic, fair toll for road use _could_ reduce congestion.

In addition to the explicit imprecision, in a significant range, demand will
be inelastic and simply result in higher tolls without commensurate reduction
in traffic and will end up hurting those of lesser means.

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wonder_er
At the moment, everyone pays the same for roads, regardless of whether or not
they use them.

Charging only those people who possess the means to drive, AND those people
who choose to drive, sounds like it could reduce the harms to those of lesser
means.

Right now, if I cannot afford to own a car and use my bicycle to get around
town, I pay for someone else to use roads, because my taxes subsidize those
roads.

So, if we paid for roads not out of general taxes, but out of tolls, it seems
like it could be cheaper for those who don't drive.

Also, for what reasons do you suppose that demand is inelastic? I'm not sure
what mechanism you're assuming is not sensitive to price.

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maym86
This is wrong. Tax is already tiered by income so people in lower brackets pay
less for roads right now and richer people pay more.

By narrowing the focus to people who have to drive on the roads and doing it
in a flat way using tolls will hurt poor people the most if they have to drive
to work. Having to drive to and from a job at a certain time is relatively
inelastic especially for lower paying service jobs.

With tolls the same money will be spread over fewer people in a flatter way.

~~~
gowld
> Tax is already tiered by income

Not in all jurisdictions. Sales taxes and gas taxes and license fees are not
tiered by income. Property taxes are vaguely tiered by income.

~~~
maym86
Right, other taxes could be better implemented too.

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empath75
We have this in northern Virginia on 66 going into the city. We’ve had tolls
as high as $50 on some days, but usually it tops out below $20. It does seem
to have helped congestion.

For people who can’t afford the toll, it’s free if you have a second rider in
the car.

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petermcneeley
What is this new transportation concept developed by our leading scientists?
Toll roads! Welcome to the 21st century's version of innovation!

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absurdum
A better idea is giving businesses tax incentives for each remote employee
living within X miles. That way you can support more rural communities too.

Their solution just trades time stuck in traffic for time stuck on public
transit and that's if where you live has adequate public transit. The people
who need to drive will still drive and these tolls will displace the traffic
elsewhere. It's silly.

There is a more accurate and cheaper way to do this, just double the price of
gas with extra taxes. It will have the same dumb effect, make commuting harder
for poorer people.

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mnm1
> The scientists do not believe that the toll would disadvantage people who
> cannot afford the tolls.

With thinking like that, the whole plan is dubious. What exactly is a fair
toll when you make $7.25 an hour as such a huge percentage of the population
makes in the US? In Seattle, where they have a bit of such a system, you can
easily spend that on the way to work. Double when you return. So now instead
of getting paid for 8 hours, one gets paid for 6 at minimum wage. Yeah, that's
fucking fair.

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ryanjshaw
On topic, "users pays" for critical roads was a dismal failure in South Africa
[0].

Off topic, but does anybody know the name of that interchange? GIS isn't
turning up anything and it's not properly attributed.

[0] [https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/transport-
minister-d...](https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/transport-minister-
distances-himself-from-e-tolls-dismal-failure-report-20170829)

~~~
StavrosK
Google says this: [https://www.instagram.com/p/BAJE1LtQJNZ/?taken-
by=dnevozhai](https://www.instagram.com/p/BAJE1LtQJNZ/?taken-by=dnevozhai)

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chrischen
I have an even better idea. Make all cars run on "soft" (embed sensors or
emitters on roads to guide self-driving cars) tracks or completely self
driving, and have them all run at max speed, zipping through intersections
without colliding because each car is aware of the whole system state at the
intersection and can avoid each other without slowing down. We have the tech,
just not the will to do this.

~~~
cassieramen
This won't fix things. If you look at maximum road capacity for a highway lane
it's pretty pitifully in the hundreds. Maximum capacity being exact speed
limit driving with minimum safe distance between cars. Obviously, city streets
have an even lower capacity even if you exclude pedestrian and bicycle traffic
Ultimately cars can't be the only solution in dense urban environments.

~~~
chrischen
You’re right that cars can never compete with mass transit in density and
bandwidth, and mass transit already operates pretty close to the ideals that I
proposed for motor vehicles. If anything it’s an example of why we should
implement trains on tracks rather than self driving cars.

But your calculation would be off because there would not be any
inefficiencies associated with human driving. Cars would have reduced safe
distance, increased max speeds, and would not have to slow down for stops,
intersections (assuming walkways are built over intersections for
pedestrians), as all cars would be part of the same computer system, and
essentially one harmonious unit.

Even if cars are low density and roads are narrow, the increased throughout
would be massive.

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Tade0
I think a system of points per registered car would be fairer. You get a set
of points per annum and info how many of them you need to spend to enter the
zone for a given day. You could buy additional points, but that would be
expensive.

Drivers of cars not in the database (e.g. tourists) pay a fee.

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jdpedrie
As with many topics discussed on HN, a recent EconTalk episode provides a
useful perspective!

[http://www.econtalk.org/michael-munger-on-
traffic/](http://www.econtalk.org/michael-munger-on-traffic/)

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inpdx
Tolls are a way of allowing wealthier people to drive with less traffic. You
may be ok with the regressive nature of that, but in a place without good
public transit it feels wrong.

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yeezul
Want to reduce rush hour traffic? Allow people to work remotely.

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s0rce
There are no laws in place preventing this. If more companies determined it
was profitable why wouldn't they allow it?

~~~
Tade0
In my area for smaller companies it's a matter of culture really. My sister is
currently fighting to be able to do just that. Her supervisor has this need to
keep tabs on people - this is an attitude I've seen in many other places.

Hell, there are proverbs predating any notion of a modern workplace that
suggest you should do so as a business owner.

I on the other hand am employed as a contractor for a large company which
noticed the profitability in having people working remotely - at least the
contractors. I guess it boils down to the size of risks a business can afford.

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ppbutt
No

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mortdeus
I think mandatory self driving mode in highly congested areas is the more sure
fire way to defeat traffic jams. The reason why traffic jams exist in the
first place is because of issues that arise from the limitations a human
driver poses.

For example, imagine a scenario where somebody from Southern California who
has never been to San Francisco is driving up 101 to visit a cousin who just
moved to the city. Neither have GPS or phones and are having to get to their
destination using a printed out Google Maps sheet.

Now imagine that this driver is on the highway and is in a hurry because they
are running late. They don't know where they are really going and all of a
sudden they spot that the exit they need to take is in 1/2 mile. And let's
assume they made the bigger mistake of thinking it was a good idea to try and
get into the city at 5 AM.

So they are now in heavy congestion, but most people are used to this traffic
and have no issue maintaining the speed limit. However, the tourist driver
needs to catch their exit. So what does she do? Start merging right, right,
right, right. And guess what they are in a hurry, so while she is merging
right she is having to cut other people off. Otherwise they will miss their
exit and be even more screwed.

And therefore she is a contributing force when it comes to the underlying
conditions that result in stand still traffic.

There is nothing you can really do about this dilemma. Everybody on the road
heading to San Francisco during it's most congested hours are doing so because
they have jobs.

It's not like a Carbon Tax is all of a sudden going to cut down on traffic
when people need to drive to work in order to make a living. Most people who
are on the road, aren't driving without some sort of living necessity in mind
at the other end of their destination.

Taxation doesn't promote better behavior. Rather it further penalizes those
who can barely afford to drive as it is. And it just further taxes the wealthy
which if you add up every last cent the top 50% (because all of that 1% of 1%
babble is just a scapegoat to distract who we are really talking about when
discussing taxation) already is obligated to pay, it becomes something around
35-50% of all non capital gains earned income. And let's not forget that if
you are religious there is often a tithe obligation to tack on to that.

I just don't understand why taxation is always deemed the magical solution to
try and curb these kind of issues. The only reason why we should ever have to
spend a cent over a universal 15% flat tax, is so the government can use that
revenue to start buying back our debt before we are faced with the dilemma
that we need to borrow more than we could ever hope to pay the interest on.

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kwhitefoot
Yet another regressive tax.

