
Traffic Waves: Sometimes one driver can vastly improve traffic (1998) - armenarmen
http://trafficwaves.org/
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bassman9000
Coming from Europe, I've noticed the jams here (Bay Area) are worse. Mostly,
because there are way more cars. But I think it's also because people use less
motor brake here (due to almost everyone driving automatic), and tend to stomp
on the brakes, almost at the end, instead of slowing down earlier.

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kwhitefoot
The annoying thing about this is that this article is quite old now and
nothing in it was new when it was first written yet roads are still designed
in ways that promote the faulty competitive behaviour.

By the way, I'm not arguing that there is anything wrong with the article,
it's good, well written and nicely argued.

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ArkyBeagle
Sitting on one of these roads, there is sufficient information the vast
majority of the time. If you see more than one pair of brake lights ahead,
then back off.

People seem to default to trying to minimize instantaneous distance from the
destination rather than realizing that this does not sum to an optimum.

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callesgg
There is another type of jam which is stop light jams which is caused by
people accelerating to slowly and taking up to much space between cars.

The same behavior that reduces stress on the high way can in that case
actually increase stress on smaller roads.

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ArkyBeagle
Some stop lights are really regulators - they reduce flow to another larger
artery. For those, no behavior will improve throughput.

People going too slowly is not going to necessarily have a negative impact on
throughput. It can - there are sets of roads that just are this way ( what you
refer to as smaller roads ).

I see at least three run stoplights a week, so I'm more careful about starting
than I used to be.

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gradstudent
It seems to me like the article has it backwards: a single driver can mess up
traffic for many people. I see nothing here to support the premise in the
title.

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antimagic
You have to read the next article (it's the link at the bottom), which then
describes in detail how one driver can indeed remove traffic jams. The first
article explains how traffic jams form, so you can understand in the second
article why a certain behaviour fixes the problem.

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norea-armozel
I always assumed it was just best practice to not drive up anyone's rear end
due to the issue of stopping distance. I never thought about it as regulating
traffic flow.

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jplab
This is the bullwhip effect. A common issue in a supply chain. It's a timing
and lack of information issue.

