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.

[/quote]

""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."""

[/quote]

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.