Make it make sense
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Hey I studied this in grad school for a bit, and it really is just "someone does some dumb shit which leads to a cascading wave of additional people doing dumb shit which propagates backwards for miles." Basically when the offered load is getting close to the maximum load, all it takes is one person aggressively changing lanes to throw that section of highway into gridlock, and it will remain that way until the total integrated traffic flux across that incident boundary again falls below the critical offered load inflection point.
Basically, pick a lane and just stay in it. Maintain proper following distance. Counterintuitively, the following distance should be for the speed you want to drive, so even in traffic it should be like 5+ car lengths even though you are going slow. This is because it reduces the offered load, and once that number falls below the critical point, speeds will increase again. Bumper to bumper traffic basically prevents that from happening because it dampens the ability for a "speedup" wave to propagate.
Of course this is all impossible for humans. All it takes is a few idiots to throw off the balance.
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You’re quite literally incorrect and talking out of your ass
You're right of course, the reason traffic exists is because you, DancingBear, cannot be on every roadway in America at the same time.
Seriously dude, have you ever been in traffic? I'm not talking about a small slowdown on a one, two lane, or even four lane road. I'm talking about sitting on the 5 or the 101 in any of the multiple times it becomes a parking lot daily.
Manually maintaining a large gap in front of you is not solving that shit, and it's frankly ridiculous to suggest that it will.
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Hey I studied this in grad school for a bit, and it really is just "someone does some dumb shit which leads to a cascading wave of additional people doing dumb shit which propagates backwards for miles." Basically when the offered load is getting close to the maximum load, all it takes is one person aggressively changing lanes to throw that section of highway into gridlock, and it will remain that way until the total integrated traffic flux across that incident boundary again falls below the critical offered load inflection point.
Basically, pick a lane and just stay in it. Maintain proper following distance. Counterintuitively, the following distance should be for the speed you want to drive, so even in traffic it should be like 5+ car lengths even though you are going slow. This is because it reduces the offered load, and once that number falls below the critical point, speeds will increase again. Bumper to bumper traffic basically prevents that from happening because it dampens the ability for a "speedup" wave to propagate.
Of course this is all impossible for humans. All it takes is a few idiots to throw off the balance.
"Pick a lane and stay in it" leads to slow drivers blocking the left lane, no?
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The problem could be alleviated with self driving cars which negotiate a uniform speed.
Other than the obvious public transit solution comment, you are aware that ACC exists right?
We literally have the technology on almost all new cars to keep a uniform distance from the car in front of it. Even without that if people realized you can save fuck all time by speeding on your 30 mile commute we could have cars moving at the speed limit and just have smooth traffic flow without any need for self-driving
Geez... I didn't want to write an entire essay and just mentioned ONE possible example for improvement, to illustrate my explanation. No need to get salty...
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The problem is solved by connecting all the cars, and putting them on rails that are electrified. This way you move fuel off site, and the cars are synced by the connection.
I was always dreaming about some kind of "individual public transport" (I think minority report had a nice example, because there the transport is part of your flat and thus doesn't waste space when not moving), which interconnects into trains for longer distances. Currently it would probably be only freezable for Intercity ranges, otherwise the coupling process takes longer than the drive.
Also, you can charge electric cars through induction rings in the street, like mobile phones. The efficiency is not the best though.
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Your solution is a dream. Real solutions already exist, it's called mass transit.
It exists... Only in movies and games though;)
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self driving cars which negotiate a uniform speed.
Until then, human drivers could approximate this system by all agreeing on a uniform speed. Maybe through some sort of app?
Or, this sounds crazy, perhaps the authorities could post signs by the side of the highway with the uniform speed printed on it?
That is actually a thing, but the optimal speed depends on traffic. Otherwise it always helps to lower speed limits, there are several studies in my area which show that on average everybody would arrive quicker at their destination if we reduce urban speed limit from 50 to 30 km/h.
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"Pick a lane and stay in it" leads to slow drivers blocking the left lane, no?
You have demonstrated why fundamentally humans suck at driving and this problem is unsolvable.
Not because you asked the question but because it's not intuitive why.
So long as this has to be explained to anyone it can't be solved.
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You have demonstrated why fundamentally humans suck at driving and this problem is unsolvable.
Not because you asked the question but because it's not intuitive why.
So long as this has to be explained to anyone it can't be solved.
I'm genuinely curious: are there adverse effects to an arrangement where the right lane is used by large trucks going 90-100 kph, middle lanes used for normal traffic going 120-130 kph and the left lane kept open for faster traffic? As far as I understand, these issues arise when cars go back and forth between lanes all the time, or when cars go slower than the ones behind them without an open lane to overtake them. If you pick a lane and stay in it, you might cause the second issue
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I was always dreaming about some kind of "individual public transport" (I think minority report had a nice example, because there the transport is part of your flat and thus doesn't waste space when not moving), which interconnects into trains for longer distances. Currently it would probably be only freezable for Intercity ranges, otherwise the coupling process takes longer than the drive.
Also, you can charge electric cars through induction rings in the street, like mobile phones. The efficiency is not the best though.
The nice thing about electric trains is that they have no need for batteries. They are always connected to the grid so they don’t have to lug any energy around with them. This makes them lighter than a car who needs those batteries for off grid driving could ever hope to get.
I’m just a train Stan and hate to think about all the money we spend on more dangerous and inefficient transport.
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You're right of course, the reason traffic exists is because you, DancingBear, cannot be on every roadway in America at the same time.
Seriously dude, have you ever been in traffic? I'm not talking about a small slowdown on a one, two lane, or even four lane road. I'm talking about sitting on the 5 or the 101 in any of the multiple times it becomes a parking lot daily.
Manually maintaining a large gap in front of you is not solving that shit, and it's frankly ridiculous to suggest that it will.
Keep beating your straw man I guess
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You are incorrect. You are the cause of the traffic jam lol, literally.
If people pass quickly, then get out of the left lane, nobody needs to brake and start a compression wave
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Hey I studied this in grad school for a bit, and it really is just "someone does some dumb shit which leads to a cascading wave of additional people doing dumb shit which propagates backwards for miles." Basically when the offered load is getting close to the maximum load, all it takes is one person aggressively changing lanes to throw that section of highway into gridlock, and it will remain that way until the total integrated traffic flux across that incident boundary again falls below the critical offered load inflection point.
Basically, pick a lane and just stay in it. Maintain proper following distance. Counterintuitively, the following distance should be for the speed you want to drive, so even in traffic it should be like 5+ car lengths even though you are going slow. This is because it reduces the offered load, and once that number falls below the critical point, speeds will increase again. Bumper to bumper traffic basically prevents that from happening because it dampens the ability for a "speedup" wave to propagate.
Of course this is all impossible for humans. All it takes is a few idiots to throw off the balance.
So basically: 1. Put people in public transport away from the steering wheel, 2) scale back cars use.
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So basically: 1. Put people in public transport away from the steering wheel, 2) scale back cars use.
Go back to fuckcars with the rhetoric.
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This is like saying you don’t know how a bottleneck works.
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Just one more road bro it will fix traffic
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Keep beating your straw man I guess
Do you also believe that only you can prevent forest fires? Or that we can recycle our way out of climate change?
Get real. Uncoordinated individual actions cannot solve systemic problems.
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I find it’s the speeders, tailgaters, and the infuriating few that can’t seem to manage to go at the prevailing speed that cause the waves in traffic. The rest is structural - merges, construction, lane reductions, etc. The aforementioned all cause the slowdowns because they move quickly, traffic tends to follow, and end up constantly hitting their brakes riding the ass of the slower traffic. That starts a wave that ends up with traffic stopping when density is high enough.
You can’t control others moving slower than you want, bitching about lane campers changes nothing, but managing a speed/spacing that allows little or no braking does wonders to keep things moving. If only people would bother to do so.
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Do you also believe that only you can prevent forest fires? Or that we can recycle our way out of climate change?
Get real. Uncoordinated individual actions cannot solve systemic problems.
In the case of traffic, keeping a larger following distance can quite literally solve the stop and go break waves that occur…
Trying to race ahead and get ahead by one car at a time makes the problem worse.
That’s all this is saying.
You can not solve the problem ahead of you, you can only affect the traffic behind you.
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Hey I studied this in grad school for a bit, and it really is just "someone does some dumb shit which leads to a cascading wave of additional people doing dumb shit which propagates backwards for miles." Basically when the offered load is getting close to the maximum load, all it takes is one person aggressively changing lanes to throw that section of highway into gridlock, and it will remain that way until the total integrated traffic flux across that incident boundary again falls below the critical offered load inflection point.
Basically, pick a lane and just stay in it. Maintain proper following distance. Counterintuitively, the following distance should be for the speed you want to drive, so even in traffic it should be like 5+ car lengths even though you are going slow. This is because it reduces the offered load, and once that number falls below the critical point, speeds will increase again. Bumper to bumper traffic basically prevents that from happening because it dampens the ability for a "speedup" wave to propagate.
Of course this is all impossible for humans. All it takes is a few idiots to throw off the balance.
There was a really interesting MythBusters episode where they essentially replicate what you're talking about. Albeit with an "n" of 1 or 2 and a very small scale, but still interesting.
