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.
Yep! All it takes is one person braking, and then the person behind braking, then the person behind them, and eith each braking the overall speed slows down more and more. It creates a wave of traffic. The wave passes through. The starting point I think moves back further and further.
I think about it a lot while I sit in traffic.
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Exactly, it's entirely because the people in front of you are going slow.
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Yes. (If a lane is closed then the furthest open right lane)
So, you think traffic here would flow better if 4 lanes were completely unused, one lane was only used for passing, and everyone else was in the remaining lane? And you could achieve this without replacing the drivers with robots?
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So, you think traffic here would flow better if 4 lanes were completely unused, one lane was only used for passing, and everyone else was in the remaining lane? And you could achieve this without replacing the drivers with robots?
Yes, more lanes result in more traffic because there’s more lanes to cut across for each exit.
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Yes, more lanes result in more traffic because there’s more lanes to cut across for each exit.
There are also more lanes for the cars to move forward in.
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There are also more lanes for the cars to move forward in.
Doesn’t matter as long as your exits aren’t bleeding into the highway.
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Yep! All it takes is one person braking, and then the person behind braking, then the person behind them, and eith each braking the overall speed slows down more and more. It creates a wave of traffic. The wave passes through. The starting point I think moves back further and further.
I think about it a lot while I sit in traffic.
I think the issue is more or less slow drivers. One asshole is going 60 in a 70 in the left lane which caused people to pass them which in turn cause the cascade from the maneuvering around the slow person.
Slow drivers are far more dangerous than people don't 10 15 over the speed limit.
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Doesn’t matter as long as your exits aren’t bleeding into the highway.
Ok, so you clearly don't understand human drivers. There's really no point in continuing this conversation.
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I think the issue is more or less slow drivers. One asshole is going 60 in a 70 in the left lane which caused people to pass them which in turn cause the cascade from the maneuvering around the slow person.
Slow drivers are far more dangerous than people don't 10 15 over the speed limit.
You are incorrect. You are the cause of the traffic jam lol, literally.
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You aren't solving traffic as an individual driver anyway. Sorry to burst everyone's atomized bubble here but that's complete nonsense.
If you manually maintain a large gap in front of you, everyone behind you becomes complete weirdos.
We could "solve traffic" by not requiring single occupant car drives to accomplish everything in our daily lives.
You’re quite literally incorrect and talking out of your ass
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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.
