
Traffic Wouldn’t Jam If Drivers Behaved Like Ants (2016) - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/blog/-traffic-wouldnt-jam-if-drivers-behaved-like-ants
======
devrandomguy
Ants walk. They live near their necessities, and they move the entire
colony/city, as a single unit, when the local economy goes bad. They only own
what they can carry: their larvae and their next meal. Their payload ratio is
legendary, but within the range of a bicycle + trailer. When there is a big
problem, they physically band together to solve it.

We have so much to learn from the ants, but 2 ton personal vehicles, four lane
city roads and a 1-2 hour daily commute, are not a part of that picture.

~~~
moneytide1
"They only own what they can carry"

Individual households in tightly packed neighborhoods EACH have garages full
of items they only use a few times a year. Some may share, but communal living
is hardly there.

Then we need more jobs and more factories to replicate more of those same
random items (ladders, wasp spray, yard tools, etc) so that they be stored
away and not shared. Then there is more traffic for people to get to work
where they participate in production that goes largely unused.

The system has enabled far too much excess, and it's a collective educational
issue.

~~~
flubert
>random items (ladders, wasp spray, yard tools, etc) so that they be stored
away and not shared.

Are there any community sharing apps? So that I could loan out my ladder,
etc.?

~~~
roughcoat
Make a facebook group for your neighborhood if you want, I suppose.

There's no way I'm loaning out my tools, equipment, or anything else I own
except to people I trust _very_ highly. I like my possessions to A) be readily
available and B) in good working condition when I need them.

~~~
devrandomguy
A reputation system might help alleviate those concerns; it might even result
in your tools being better maintained. I've never tried a car-share, but the
general idea seems legit.

The primary motive for you to join, would be the opportunity to use the best
specialized tool for every job, every time. If not even that would convince
you, then you must have a truly awesome lab/workshop, and therefore you are
out of our league, so to speak. Congratulations on your success, I hope to see
your work on Youtube.

~~~
roughcoat
There's a difference between belonging to a sort of tool club, and paying with
both time and money to keep things going well, and loaning out my personal
possessions. I've been thinking about joining a local makerspace specifically
to get access to large tools I don't have space for right now, and I have no
problem with that idea. That's no different from joining a gym, in principle.
(That doesn't mean I _prefer_ using communal tools. I means right now, that's
what's best for my situation. Once I have space, I absolutely will be buying a
lathe, mill, etc.)

However, there's a clear difference between that and loaning out my _personal
equipment_. I would never belong to a car share because my car is an intensely
personal possession. It doesn't sit bare and empty when I'm not driving it--I
keep things in my car--and I _never_ want it to be unavailable to me. And the
same goes for my tools. Even something as simple as a ladder or a socket set
is personal, when it's something you selected and bought yourself.

I wonder how many mechanics you know? Machinists? Other skilled tool-using
professionals? Ask some of them how they feel about loaning tools sometime.

~~~
flubert
Yes, I wouldn't be loaning out my Bergeon lathe, but maybe the 99% of people
who aren't machinists might be willing to contemplate loaning out their $30
aluminum step ladder to their neighbor for an afternoon? Or maybe not, but I'd
be interested in trying it out.

[http://www.ofrei.com/page_205.html](http://www.ofrei.com/page_205.html)

~~~
roughcoat
I'm not speaking hypothetically. I have loaned many tools, and many other
possessions, to people in the past. Other people rarely treat my possessions
with care, and sometimes they can't be bothered to return them unless I badger
them. If I loan you a tool, and you not only don't return it in good shape and
in a timely manner but make me come get it from you, I'm certainly not loaning
you anything else.

There are certain things I just won't loan. Books? Hell no, unless they're
textbooks. If I think someone would enjoy/benefit from reading a book, I'll
buy them a copy. Tools? Probably not, unless it's about my third spare and I
don't care if I lose it--and I'd probably just give it to them then. Vehicle?
Maybe, depending who they are, but I'm more likely to just give them a ride.
And of course, that's the thing, isn't it... I'd rather _help someone myself_
than just hand them my gear and wish them luck. And I have done so many times
in the past, though I am becoming more selective about who gets my time.

Liability is not to be ignored either. Loan someone a ladder they're too
clueless to use properly and you might find yourself getting sued. Besides the
fact that I don't want someone else wandering off with my $300 Werner
multiposition ladder--sorry, I don't have a crappy ladder I keep around just
to loan out--the thing is not exactly foolproof to use. 16 feet off the ground
is not the best time to realize you didn't lock the pivot correctly. I
wouldn't let someone whose competence I was not sure of just borrow a
chainsaw, motorcycle, or firearm either.

FWIW I don't like borrowing things myself either. I've broken friends'
possessions before and even though I fixed/replaced them, it's still an awful
feeling breaking someone else's stuff.

Here are some opinions and experiences related to loaning tools, if you're
interested:

[http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=37765](http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=37765)

[http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=355714](http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=355714)

It's interesting that the 2009 thread had a lot more people who were happy to
loan tools, and who had good experiences doing so, than the 2017 thread. That
mirrors my experience with loaning things to and generally helping people over
the last decade.

------
gerbilly
The problem is that what is most efficient for getting a car from point a to b
is not what is best for society overall.

There are many articles online where people on residential streets got flooded
with traffic because of apps like waze.[1]

In the valley we only seem good at solving single isolated problems, and we
are remarkably tone deaf to the effects these 'disruptions' have on the rest
of society.

1\. [http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/shortcut-app-
waze-1.346300...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/shortcut-app-
waze-1.3463004)

~~~
robbrown451
A good argument can be made that using the residential streets is best for
"society overall." The amount it disrupts those who live in the neighborhood
could very well be outweighed by a large reduction of wasted time by all those
stuck in a traffic jam.

~~~
lightedman
Streets are made for driving upon. If people don't like people driving on
their streets, they should vote to get rid of them.

To boot, most people in those neighborhoods SHOULD be going to work anyways,
so they shouldn't notice people going up and down their streets for the most
part. We haven't hit Japan's retirement-age population level problem, yet.

~~~
gerbilly
Don't tell people what they should do. Maybe they work from home, maybe they
don't work at all, what the heck does work ethic have to do with it?

~~~
lightedman
"Don't tell people what they should do."

The pure irony of your statement.

~~~
gerbilly
There is no irony[1]. I never told people not to use waze, just pointed out
the consequences of doing so at scale on existing political arrangements made
in society.

1\. Perhaps hypocrisy, is the word you really meant. Nobody knows what irony
means anymore.

~~~
lightedman
Hypocrisy and Irony are very closely linked hand-in-hand, so closely in fact
that the words can effectively be substituted for each other in this instance.
It is hypocritical for someone to tell me to not tell someone what to do (and
in fact, my 'telling someone what to do' was a suggestion, since voting is not
a mandatory thing in the USA where I post from) since they are doing the same
thing in effect, and it is ironic since they are effectively performing the
very behavior they're wanting me to not do.

I had the last vestiges of a 'good' education, where one could use good logic
to explain the usage of a word not commonly used in such a manner. I attended
the 4th best independent school district in the nation at the time. That
district no longer exists and hasn't in true form for over 20 years. The
students are now meth and heroin addicts. My hometown has the title of heroin
capital of the USA because the amount of black tar exceedingly overwhelms the
COMBINED shipments (calculated) of powder and crack cocaine FOR THE NATION,
and has done this consistently since it was featured on Channel One news
twenty years ago.

~~~
gerbilly
Still no irony, sorry. Nor hypocrisy either.

Your initial comment is being down-voted, perhaps because your post contained
an irrelevant prescription for what people should do, and a broad
generalization of what streets are 'for'.

Should we all consider the matter settled now that you have told us what
streets are for, and informed us that we should all be working?

~~~
lightedman
"a broad generalization of what streets are 'for'"

Streets are designed for the flow of traffic. There has never been any other
reason. Source: Former Memphis Civil Engineer.

and I didn't mean should as in "Mandatory" but as in "should be at work at
this point and time given typical work days."

But people seem to be too quick to voice their opinion with a click instead of
vocalizing it. Oh, yet here on the front page is an article trying to espouse
the very virtue of LETTING SOMEONE SPEAK.

That's pretty backwards and pathetic.

------
samstave
Ants are physically incapable of getting into "anto-accidents" though, and
they are not physically relegated to a thin, poorly maintained, and often at
times, poorly planned/engineered, two dimentional ribbon that does not have
their best route at heart.

Cars are only like ants in that they are discrete objects moving along set
paths, but similarity in capability ends there.

Every car has a completely different universe of goals, objectives, plans,
destinations, etc from each other and they lack the ability to communicate,
inform,or teach other cars anything.

Further, ants do not posses the ability to get frustrated with heavy ant
traffic triggering ant-rage, they simply re-route as required.

Humans driving cars can act irrationally based on nearly infinite input
possibilities...

Autonomous vehicles driven by AI which mimics ant movement logic can do well
for traffic, but so long as a human consciousness is directing the vehicle...
not going to get better any time soon.

~~~
VLM
Street automobiles are essentially limited to 1 dimensional ribbon not 2D. To
get 2D you need wilderness and ATVs, or a horse.

Also look at their performance stats, zero to 90% of top speed is a good
fraction of a minute in my commuter car whereas for an ant its about a
footstep ditto turning performance.

A better analogy to ant behavior than car driving would be humans wandering
about a park, perhaps one of the concerts in the park series that I attend. Or
maybe humans wandering about a uni campus or around a sporting event. Or a
riot.

Many have commented on how well ants cooperate. Well, not all species
cooperate across nests and some of the more predator like ants are kinda
brutal to smaller insects.

Likewise humans part of the same "family" like a large military convoy seem to
cooperate reasonably well.

~~~
khedoros1
> Street automobiles are essentially limited to 1 dimensional ribbon not 2D.

Well...a graph of 1D ribbons, connected in such a way as to approximate 2D.

------
Evolved
The problem isn't training people to behave like ants for efficiency reasons.
That shouldn't be difficult. The problem is people not planning ahead which
translates to slamming on the brakes to make a lane change to exit, not
speeding up quickly enough to merge smoothly with traffic which translates to
the braking shockwave effect on the cars behind them, and finally, people's
self-serving attitudes that translate to cutting other people off/weaving in
and out of lanes/not letting others merge/etc.

TL;DR - This has been rehashed over and over but the same results are these:
Ants do what is best for the colony. People do what is best for themselves.

------
CommieBobDole
And with well-designed self-driving cars, pretty soon they will.

~~~
alextheparrot
Assuming each self-driving company doesn't implement adversarial behavior,
only cooperating with their own kind. This would both help reinforce the
benefits of operating at scale and give their vehicles faster than average
speeds. Interesting times ahead once we transition to self-driving more fully.

~~~
jklein11
I would imagine if car vendors were creating cars that intentionally cut off
or slow down their competitors the regulators would step in and do what they
do best... regulate.

~~~
alextheparrot
Sure, but let's say it would be globally optimal to slow down and let you in.
You could imagine this only being done for cars of the same brand, which is
different than explicitly attacking competitors. Regulation is likely that
answer, but I have my doubts that "behaving like ants" will be the default
behavior.

------
kbutler
Ants only know about problems at the location that previous ants encountered
them. That is, they can't look ahead to problems, and can only report when
coming back over a path.

A good example of this is the ant colony in a Polish nuclear bunker - the ants
consistently fall into a ventilation pipe, because there's no pheromone
warning signal of the dangerous fall.

[https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/09/bizarre-ant-
colony-d...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/09/bizarre-ant-colony-
discovered-in-an-abandoned-polish-nuclear-weapons-bunker/)

And as a side-effect, there's an ant colony with no queen, no larvae, no
males, but a continual supply of adult workers.

------
mrfusion
At some point all the cars physically don't fit on the road. (Especially
keeping safe distances between them)

At that point no behavior would eliminate traffic.

------
orliesaurus
This article reminds me of: If my grandmother had wheels she would be a bike

------
moneytide1
If everyone started driving the moment they saw the light turn green, the
collective traffic would move forward like a train. Granted, there needs to be
a buffer zone between each car. But that zone often gets diminished because
everyone wants to drive until they have to stop behind someone, rather than
driving while looking ahead at the traffic sequence.

The tortoise/hare metaphor is relevant here: sometimes slowing down without
braking within a couple hundred yards of an intersection can get you through
quicker (and use less energy). The idea is to avoid complete stops (sometimes
inevitable).

But there are attitudes in mental software that must be modified. "I'm in a
hurry and I have to get there RIGHT NOW." "Everyone is in MY way."

Individualism can be an inefficiency of the collective, and that will be a
tough lesson to teach.

~~~
roughcoat
'But there are attitudes in mental software that must be modified. "I'm in a
hurry and I have to get there RIGHT NOW." "Everyone is in MY way."

Individualism can be an inefficiency of the collective, and that will be a
tough lesson to teach.'

Indeed, all you need to do is rewrite human nature.

------
nxsynonym
The issue isn't that humans don't behave like ants. The issue is that we have
an aversion to public/shared transportation and promote commuting as a given.

Personal car culture needs to die for traffic to be reduced. For that to
happen we need better transportation options for rural areas or more remote-
work opportunities.

~~~
roughcoat
Why do you assume people embrace "personal car culture" just because there's a
lack of public transportation? People like having their own vehicles. It's
freedom and independence.

Even if I lived right on a bus line, and my workplace was on that same line, I
would still drive or ride a motorcycle to work (or bike, if it was close
enough I suppose). I got well over being on the bus's schedule by my senior
year of high school and I have no interest in going back to that.

I do absolutely agree we need more remote work options but that's up to
employers, and they don't seem to like the idea much in general, so... not
holding my breath.

~~~
nxsynonym
> It's freedom and independence

This is why I assume people embrace it. Is it really freedom and independence
when 90% of your time spent in the car is in traffic to get to work and home?

Freedom to me is not wasting 5-10 hours a week on getting to work, unpaid.
Even if that means sacrificing my 'freedom' to drive around the countryside on
weekends.

~~~
roughcoat
I don't see how having a long commute somehow diminishes the benefits of
having a personal vehicle. For most people, having a personal vehicle means,
partly, being able to live _where they want_ instead of having to choose a
home based on accessibility to public transportation, or alternately, to be
able to take a job that may be lucrative but _totally inaccessible_ by public
transportation. A personal vehicle offers a good deal of flexibility and
antifragility that I think you're ignoring here, given the way the real world
is set up.

And perhaps all _you_ do is drive around the countryside on the weekend, but
that is hardly the only use for a personal vehicle. At least half the really
interesting things I've done in my life would not have been possible without
my own vehicle.

------
gmiller123456
"Behaved Like Ants". You mean walked everywhere? traveled at speeds that make
collisions irrelevant? Without regard for trespassing? And be so immune to
terrain barriers as to be able walk upside down?

Ants really just have more choices for paths than they need.

------
coldcode
What if ants drove cars, would they still avoid accidents? Or is the problem
different at scale?

------
nyxtom
Ants also climb over each other from time to time: something a car is not
recommended to do.

------
pif
Yes, in the example of ants and citronella, slower is better if you care about
overall suffering. But faster is much better if you care about _your_
suffering _AND_ if you happen to quit the room before the jamming starts.

------
Animats
Ants aren't big enough that inertia matters and have zero turning radius.

------
cmurf
Yeah but we aren't ants, we're primates. And primates are either equally
competitive to cooperative or perhaps slightly more so competitive. Ants don't
compete, they only cooperate.

------
daxfohl
Sure, but what is an ant going to do with the time it saves by cutting in
line?

------
megamindbrian
Sorry, when I drive I can only look out for myself.

------
mcrad
Ants drive manual transmissions and humans are getting cars that do more of
the thinking for them(?)

