talks about traffic fluid dynamics, traffic waves, reducing bottlenecks and slowdowns. interesting stuff.

http://www.amasci.com/amateur/traffic/traffic1.html

 

This was fascinating!

I've sent it to the other engineers I work with - I know they'll love it.

And it makes sense too.

 

I read that about a year ago and it is an amazing idea. The problem comes when I try to explain any of this to a non-engineer: they nod, nod, and then ask me the score of last night's baseball game.

 

Cool reading. I've also noticed some of these things before.

I did find it interesting that he never mentions the effect of speed limits. Since the "critical density" occurs when cars get so close together that people can no longer merge, the higher the speed limit is, the more people can drive on a particular road before taffic begins to back up. In practice though you can't just keep raising speeds because eventually high speeds will cause more accidents than it will prevent and *really* back up traffic. But nevertheless, it seems to me that the practice of lowering speed limits in congested areas is actually the wrong thing to do. You are effectively lowering the maximum amount of traffic that can travel on a road before you get gridlock.

Something that I did find really interesting was the idea of a caravan of cops driving slightly slower than traffic for a few miles before a congested area. Rather than sitting by the side of the road with their radar and actually *causing* traffic jams as people slow down, they could actually help fix traffic jams after they happen. It would kinda suck to have them pull in front of you though...

 

thats pretty cool, but its already been noted, its called the inchworm effect, those who went to s2kdays '01 are aware of it because greg made a post about it and how to aviod it.