Traffic Jam research, your thoughts...

https://www.fastcompany.com/9045573...jams-and-theyre-begging-cities-to-listen

Sample quote

Krylatov would like to solve urban traffic jams forever, so much so that he has coauthored a book of new math approaches to traffic and ways to implement them. (Translation: Engineers, Let Us Handle This.)

Four takeaways:

All drivers need to be on the same navigation system. Cars can only be efficiently rerouted if instructions come from one center hub. One navigation system rerouting some drivers does not solve traffic jams.

Parking bans. Many urban roads are too narrow and cannot be physically widened. Traffic-flow models can indicate where parking spots should be turned into lanes.

Green lanes. For cities that want to increase electric car use, special lanes should be created for electric cars, providing an incentive for their use.

Digital twins. Traffic demands and available infrastructure can only be balanced with digital modeling that creates an entire “twin” of existing roadways. The software will be “an extremely useful thought tool in the hands of transport engineers.”

End quote

I vote that a 50 mile circle around Washington D.C. be the test area.

That's all fine and dandy.

But maybe a case of simply one can't see the forest from the trees.

I've usually thought problem solving is best pursued by attacking the low hanging fruit first.

That being said, in my nearly 3 million miles driving experience over 5 decades, the most irksome and time wasting time spent on the road first centers around traffic accidents.

Now if one wants to prevent and/or reduce traffic accidents, good luck, until one can test for me first, I own the road, I don't care about safety or others, mindset, accidents will be part of driving. Self driving cars are the best prospect in the future for this problem.

However, it seems to me, there is zero effort, research or attention as to how to restore efficient traffic post accident or during rescue.

The traffic tie -ups once traffic has been stalled seems to last far after the accident has cleared, and runs in waves thru waiting traffic.

Rubber necking ought to be criminal, and enforced. Others lack of gory centered self control should not be something others have to bear.
Actually it seems the first responders are now intentionally blocking extra lanes with their vehicles for their own protection.
It also appears most are on over time pay while, and their is no one in charge to discharge and coordinate those non essential and doing little other then rubbernecking themselves..

In rush hour traffic back ups, the cost to society is significant, in lost time, wasted fuel, airborne pollutants from idling cars, breatning them, secondary breakdowns from overheating, etc, frustrated drivers re enforcing road rage, missed dinners with family, higher blood pressure, etc.

The accident has already happened, the injuries have already occurred, of course human life is the most important thing, but accidents do not happen in a vacuum, others also are paying a price, but nobody in charge seems to notice or care.

Decades back they finally figured out night time road construction in the big picture, made a lot of sense.

Make a plan to clear a traffic congesting accident, with a F1? pit crew style response team, put somebody in charge on every site, and document and study the response performance post accident..

Or just keep parking more fire trucks, and have PhD's tell us we can't keep widening roads, while traffic induced back ups keep happening.

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""All drivers need to be on the same navigation system. Cars can only be efficiently rerouted if instructions come from one center hub. One navigation system rerouting some drivers does not solve traffic jams."""

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Unless all drivers have the same brain function and think alike,it would never work !

So, if all the drivers have to have the same navigation system, are they going to give a system to everyone? Who will be expected to foot that bill?
You can call me paranoid if you want, but I would much rather not let the government have any more info about me then they already collect. None of my vehicles have any form of a navigation system in them, unless my wife is riding along and she has her cell phone. I don't have a smart phone. Gene

Things like this makes me love my 51 every time I drive it.

Zero computes in it. No GPS, no ability to have someone track you. None of it.

Just have to leave the cellphone on the counter.

X2. Central Hub? When I read that, my tin foil hat starts to crackle and the words become unscrambled to read big brother.

In the near future traffic won't be problem since just about everyone is going to be working from home and any semblance of local retail will be a thing of the past. No one will ever have to leave their house (cell) again!

In the city, eliminate the yellow light. Instant red, instant green. Tickets with heavy fines, like $1000 if you don't stand on the gas within 1 second of light turning green if you are first in line, and 1 second of the car in front of you moving if you are not first in line. Same fine for not not reaching and maintaining the speed limit within 5 seconds of green light. No tickets for speeding allowed, only for going under the limit. All stop lights to have either no left turn, or a turn lane so straight ahead traffic can flow. Rear ending someone who did not maintain the speed limit in the traffic lane is the fault of the one who got hit, not the hitter, with big fines and damage liability.
On the freeway system, just remove the brakes from all cars on the entrance ramp. All traffic congestion is caused by drivers who use the brakes when they should have used the gas. If you take away the brakes, they will HAVE TO hit the gas to they don't get rear ended, they will HAVE to merge properly with that gas instead of the brakes for their own safety. Hemi Joels fantasy world, where everyone knows how to drive.

Another solution, fire all government workers. When the government went on strike in MInnesota, traffic flowed as smooth as silk!

remove Humans from the equation and things will smooth out...

Kinda like how smart phones are so stone cold reliable...

Here are some things I believe would help in my experience. The left lane should be for passing only, if you are not passing someone, you should not be in it. This not only slows traffic, but also causes accidents because people have to pass on the right, and of course, that's when the slower car speeds up to prevent the other car from passing on the right. The other issue is trucks in the left lane on hills. I get it, they have to pass slower trucks, but then they end up below the speed limit on these hills and also slow traffic.

Here's one, if you are governed to 65 mph and the speed limit is 80 stay out of the left lane, loss of license for breaking that one.

The best way to reduce traffic jams is simple:

A- make the roads big enough to support the traffic volume they have. If you have a high volume on ramp make it long enough that it doesn't back up traffic on the road it's coming from. If you're dumping a busy off ramp onto a city street that lane should be long enough to let people properly merge, not just immediately dumping them into normal traffic.

B- Enforce speed limits and other traffic rules.

C- Keep slow moving vehicles such as moving construction equipment and garbage pickup off main roads during rush hour times.

Around here they make the mistake of putting in a new road that dumps major traffic into other roads that were never designed for it. Or they take what was a working intersection getting traffic directly where it needs to go and permanently close it diverting traffic down a road that was never designed for that many vehicles. Or they aleviate traffic by putting in a new thru road, but then they start allowing developers to put up stores and subdivions along that road adding traffic lights and reduced speed limits all over the place causing the problem all over again.

Making special lanes for green vehicles does nothing. Controlling vehicles by navigation would help a bit by eliminating the problem of slow drivers or ones that change lanes sporadically but at the end it's still volume vs road design.

Increasing speed limits would help. More speed= less time on the road= less cars on the road at any given moment.

In Minnesota, a Mndot beaurocrat admitted on the radio that they design roads to thwart the smooth flow of traffic, and to create traffic jams in an effort to frustrate driver's into politically supporting public transit.

the biggest problem on the freeways are the rocket scientists that merge on the freeway UNDER the speed limit. this causes the other rocket scientists to slow down to let them merge into traffic.....when i went to traffic school to get my license the book said merge onto the freeway at slightly FASTER speeds and when driving on the freeway MAINTAIN your speed and let the merging traffic adjust to your speed.
if people actually did this traffic merging slowdowns would be almost nonexistent.

the fact that they were government workers meant nothing. the reason why traffic flowed smoothly was because there was less traffic on the roads . if as many workers for any other company went on strike traffic would have been the same result.

Its not designed to be like that but they will neglect it, allow traffic to get bad to push people into public transit - especially after spending billions on it. Then transit gets backed up and they have to fix the traffic problem and back and forth it goes.

"Green lanes. For cities that want to increase electric car use, special lanes should be created for electric cars, providing an incentive for their use."

How does this help traffic flow?! Creating another lane that combines with the overall routing efficiently would help but that has nothing to do with electric cars. Seems like he slipped in a personal preference for electric car use arbitrarily.

You are correct, except I suspect self driving cars will more the likely be easier to integrate if electric, and since self driving cars will remove the nut behind the wheel, we can program in tailgating at 75?mph for everybody and merging will be a concern of the past.

"Here's one, if you are governed to 65 mph and the speed limit is 80 stay out of the left lane, loss of license for breaking that one"

This thought will not work IMO, somebody driving 65 when under the speed limit should be allowed to pass another slower car without fear of losing their license,

Its called compromise. If somebody must not be slowed by anyone else driving, they should take a helicopter.

I'm always leery of Social Engineering.
I've seen where designating a special lane - HOV - backed up traffic in the other lanes, because it's simply not as convenient to car-pool.
Local city bureaucrats here have narrowed a couple streets and put goofy "bulb-outs" at many intersection corners, to "beautify" the town and "make it more appealing for walking".
Didn't do a thing for increasing walking, but it's doubled the drive time & back-up in town.
The people who don't know how to merge, who nail the brakes or rubber-neck for seemingly anything, etc are an issue.
Driving isn't taken as seriously in the US as it is in some other places (Germany, for example).
Nor are the roads and their maintenance: every day, I see something that's a set-up for a wreck or vehicle damage.

Not when you are a so called professional driver playing the rolling roadblock game. You need to no longer need to have the capacity to earn a living driving when you do this.

good points ! ^^^^^^^^^^^

I have a merge situation that occurs that is frustrating, it seems for everyone.

My thinking:

1. Nobody should expect others to EVER exceed the speed limit, no matter what the flow of traffic is.
2. EVERYBODY should drive at a speed they feel is safe for their abilities, their vehicle, their load, their trailer, and the conditions.
3. If that speed above can not meet legal minimums, or the flow of at least pick a number 5%? of the traffic, they should consider exiting the interstate, or if on a two lane, pull over and let backed up traffic to safely pass.
4. When entering an interstate, one should increase speed to closely match the flow of traffic, at or below the speed limit, faster only at your own legal risk.
5. When you are on the Interstate with approaching merging traffic, moving over one lane, if safely possible, is courteous, thoughtful, and safer for all, but not legally required, I believe.
6. This is where the problem arises, when I'm driving at the speed I feel comfortable with, based on 1,2,&3 above, I often move over for oncoming merging traffic. However sometimes that merging traffic is multiple cars, and closely spaced (tailgaters). So I am then in the left or center lane, being courteous, and safe and driving at my comfortable speed, and the merging traffic on my right is now speeding up, and there are no breaks in the traffic for me to safely merge back right, without others thinking I'm cutting them off. The cars starting to stack up behind seem to think I'm a left lane road hog. Nothing could further from the truth. The truth seems to be they were not paying enough attention to see why I moved over in the first place. The matter further deteriorates when the following drivers decide impatiently that I have no intention to move back to the right, they start to pass ,and others just start also passing on the right, and that just aggravates finding any opening for me to get back over.

Damned if do, Damned if you don't.

People should drive so as to not impede others, that's more courteous than driving at a speed YOU want that impedes others.
That encompasses a lot of behaviors.
The point is that nobody should need to maneuver around you.
Similarly, I believe in merging at a speed a bit above the traffic, which allows the option of slowing to fit in, or finding a gap to fit into.
That also sends the message that you're not going to impede flow.

I prefer the style of left-most lane for speed, right lane for access/egress.
Long ago I developed a habit of quick analysis of who's around & ahead of me to avoid possible issues.
On interstates or freeways, I generally place my vehicle so I'm not at the mercy of others.
Generally my goal is to be in the biggest gap.
That works: I've avoided wrecks around & ahead of me and all manner of foolishness.
You can do all that and travel courteously at a pretty good clip if you're paying attention.

Then what is more important, being courteous and driving at what one feels is an unsafe speed, or driving at a safe speed for your vehicle, your ability, your load that impedes other speeding drivers?

Keep in mind we are not addressing driving in any lane when not passing, other then the right lane.

Not sure where you're going with that, but:
I've very rarely driven at an unsafe speed for conditions, roadway & equipment.
Ditto holding others up for any length of time, say like when towing and having the situation of multiple speeds (big rigs, etc) in multiple lanes.
Sometimes in that situation you just have to fit in and deal with the big picture. It's considerate.

I don't always set my upper limit by the posted speed signs if I'm in the middle of nowhere and conditions allow.
There are many stretches of highway where in the right car & conditions, one can travel quite quickly & safely.
Obviously, race & HPDE experience elevates skill and comfort levels. I urge everyone I know with kids to take them to a HP driving school.
A capable, well-maintained vehicle, and being attentive, are something I consider pretty basic requirements for any driving, any speed.
I do not believe that everyone gifted with a driver's license should be on the road, nor junk vehicles, nor those terrified of speed or surrounding conditions.
Like everything else, some people just aren't good at it.
That's why I referenced Germany, which has traditionally had a very low fatality rate compared to ours, while being able to travel freely at high speeds on excellent roads in fit vehicles.