In northern America, I think most of the cars have automatic transmission. In France, (where I live), we mostly (maybe 99% ?) have manual transmissions. Have you ever experimented a traffic jam with a manual trans. car ? You have to switch gears every 10 seconds and it's very very very annoying.
I'm telling you that, because as a frequent driver (well, today I drive a bike but still) in Paris, and kind of very observant, I clearly see that most people are not doing what these drivers do in this experiment. Most of the time, everybody will let a huge space between the car behind them in order to avoid changing the gears too frequently.
On the contrary, on automatic cars (I had one and drove another for 6 months in Canada), that's easier to go & stop & go & stop & go & stop, etc...
Not sure if it's related, but I think it is, in a small proportion.
Pretty sure transmission type has nothing to do with it -- traffic is stop and go in plenty of places where most cars have manual transmissions.
I'm increasingly convinced that it's due to so many drivers optimizing for local minima, at the expense of not just everyone around them, but of themselves thirty seconds later.
I am pretty sure this is one of the many reasons. I recently came to usa from eastern europe, where I had car with manual gearbox (and with ceramic clutch, turbo, etc rough stuff under hood keeping you busy in traffic =)). I quickly get used to do smooth driving and continue to do it here in usa too on my automatic trans car.
Where I live there's something called 'block driving' (I haven't found a better translation for the Dutch word 'blokrijden'). On busy summer days, when the highway to the coast is jammed, a police car will block the highway, then drive at a constant speed (and slower than the maximum speed), with no one being allowed to pass the police car. Apparently this helps to resolve the traffic waves.
The California Highway Patrol appears to do this in Southern California as well. I've seen a patrol car start weaving between two lanes, then three, weaving more and more until it's blocking all lanes of traffic like a weavy pace car.
I base my commuting style on this guys articles. Drive slightly slower than everyone else and let large spaces grow in front of your car. It's a lot harder than it sounds (for me anyway) but when I get it right, it makes my drive much more enjoyable.
People that just HAVE to drive as fast as possible will go around you (you should never do this in the left lane) and everyone else will sort of get in line after you... it looks a bit like those nascar groups where all the cars go exactly the same speed.
This space also enables you to time the lights, so you do less accelerating/decelerating, and increases your buffer for breaking, so driving is safer and less stressful.
Also somewhat related, if there's a slow vehicle in front of you when you're going down the on-ramp to the interstate -- slow down even more so you have many car lengths to merge.
Nobody else I've ridden with will do this (I've suggested it). Instead, they tailgate the slow car, curse like mad, and then almost cause a wreck when the try to pass the slow car in full-speed traffic as soon as they enter the interstate.
If you leave enough space you can easily get up to interstate speed and pass them quickly and effectively.
Except that people who want to go faster than you will pass you and get in front of you. This leads you to either keep slowing down to maintain the space or start shrinking the space.
I used to do this every once in a while. One thing to be aware of, are large trucks behind you at the top of hills. They tend to want to increase speed going down hills to use their velocity to climb the next. It's probably a good idea to accommodate this.
Interesting observation is that what TFA calls the "cheaters", ie those who drive to the end of their lane before merging at the last minute, may actually be doing the right thing. See Tom Vanderbilt talk about it here http://www.vimeo.com/6779064.
He doesn't say why in the short one (I haven't watched the long one). Late mergers are definitely bad in some situations - for example, when they are merging into a slow-moving turnoff lane, blocking a whole lane of ongoing traffic.
I had the good fortune to do a three month internship in Seattle last spring. And I have to say - after growing up in Dallas, now living in Florida, and seeing traffic in other places... Seattle drivers are unique.
I've seen this [appear to] work in Seattle. While I was there, I tried it, and it appeared to work.
However, while I lived in Dallas, I was aware of this idea, and tried it there - and no way. People cut in, people tailgated - it completely doesn't work.
So I think it partially depends on the nature of the city's drivers. And there is something special about Seattle.
I live and work in DC. I go to Dallas at least once a year and drive every day during the week and weekend. I agree this would be impossible in Dallas traffic. It doesn't feel as intentionally aggressive as DC traffic, instead it's like everyone in Dallas can't take their foot off the accelerator even if they wanted to. It's hard enough finding a space between two cars to merge, you usually have to just go for it and hope the rear car can find his brakes.
The solution to traffic jams is to not leave transportation in the hands of clueless, distracted, reckless drivers. The solution is fast, reliable, ubiquitous public transit.
I agree that this doesn't work well around Boston. My opinion is that the fluidity of traffic, ie. lane changing, doesn't break down at low speeds in Boston. If you let a cars length open in front of you it will fill up with a car. I tend to think that this makes efficient use of the pavement available and tends for a traffic flow that is as maximal as possible but I don't have any evidence about that.
I've tried this in Phoenix with some success. You do get people passing you, but this helps traffic on average. We also have lights at the freeway on ramps which smooth oncoming traffic, but people ignore them until a line forms. I almost got rear-ended once because someone intended to ignore it and I chose to obey it.
If you do this when traffic is not quite jammed, people are far more upset. It's best used when traffic is being forced to actually stop regularly. You will still get people to honk at you and whatnot, especially once a person or two passes you, but I've long since given up expecting most people to understand the things I do.
Heh, I didn't realise that it had such an effect, but this is the exact same game I play when caught up in a heavy traffic: the how-long-can-I-go-before-breaking game! ;-)
It could be related to driving a manual and being lazy, but it helps your concentration no end :)
No idea why you were at -1; your comment was informative and on topic.
On a side note, I also tend to play that "game" when stuck in slow home-from-holiday traffic over the mountains. Changing speeds all the time while driving manual is such a pain.
I've actually spent quite a bit of time pondering this. Here are my completely unscientific conclusions.
Imagine a [moving] wall, on an interstate, moving at 30MPH. No matter what is happening behind this wall, it is impossible to maintain an average speed faster than the wall. You can try any amount of tricks to smooth out traffic, but it will be impossible to ever move past this wall. As long as there is a steady stream of traffic, no car will ever do more than 30MPH until this moving wall gets out of the way.
So now let's, more realistically, replace the wall with a bunch of slow drives, and ask 2 important questions:
1. How to get out of this situation? -- We want these drivers to all SPEED UP! It's really as simple as this. Until these bottleneck drivers move out of the way, you can only smooth out traffic, but never increase the speed.
2. How to avoid this problem in the first place? -- In general, there will be some bottleneck. After too many cars are going through this bottleneck at once, there will be slowdown. Ideally, these bottlenecks should be identified and no more than the maximum amount of cars at a time should enter the bottleneck to decrease the speed of traffic.
Of course, that's easier said than done, but I think the important thing to take away from my ramblings is this:
The best way to get rid of a traffic jam is: if you are in the front of the pack and have a chance to accelerate, you should do so as quickly as possible. If everybody were to do this, average speed could then be increased.
But note that there aren't any slowpokes here, instead, every single car is blocked by the car ahead of them. The people behind you think that you are the slowpoke driver. But nothing is blocking the traffic, instead the average speed of the long column of cars is determined by the spacing between cars, and that spacing is determined by psychology.
In light traffic, some people go far faster than average, but nobody tries to stop them. When we arrive at heavy congestion, don't we suddenly decide to close up ranks to prevent aggressive drivers from passing, stop them from "cutting us off?" If everyone habitually blocks the speeders, then it means we've compressed the traffic pattern past the peak of maximum flow, and pushed it into the unstable realm of stop/go oscillations and standing waves or "ghost jams."
Want jams to vanish? Then do as the pro truckers do and just freaking back off. Happily encourage other cars to merge ahead. (They're not "cutting you off," there's no such thing as "cutting you off." They're just trying to merge into the adjacent lane!) If traffic momentarily slows way down, everyone just make sure to keep an open space that allows merging, and you'll find that it speeds right back up again.
Somewhat different from the commuter-oriented topic of the article, I've seen attempts by truckers to enforce a similar pattern in construction zones (traffic reduced by one or more lanes) on long stretches of highway: In a situation where one lane has to merge because it is closed in the distance, the "nice" drivers all merge far ahead of time, while the aggressive drivers attempt to go all the way to the end of the lane and then merge ahead of everyone, causing the kind of grinding gears described in the article. To combat this, a couple of big rigs driven in parallel in the open lane and the lane that is closed ahead block all traffic from passing. This prevents the aggressive drivers from attempting to merge at the last second, smoothing out the wave. I've seen this happen several times on cross-country trips; I wonder if the truckers coordinate over radio or just choose to do it independently.
On a related note, I wonder if "lane closed ahead" signs placed too far ahead actually make this problem worse, since many drivers will immediately merge out of the closing lane far ahead of time, causing a wall of traffic if the front of the line has to slow down for aggressive last-second merges.
So now when I'm in a jam, I just slow down instead of engaging the speedup, break pattern. Haven't looked behind me though to see if I had any effect on the traffic behind me.
In Melbourne, Australia, a similar concept was used to ease congestion entering freeways. We had a peak-hour problem where cars would flood the entry ramps, but struggle to merge with the existing freeway traffic - this caused people to brake/slow down which resulted in major jams.
To alleviate this issue "there are traffic lights at some freeway entrances to control the flow of vehicles onto the freeway when the traffic is heavy. When operating, the lights will change quickly, so that when the light is green only one vehicle in each lane will be able to enter the freeway." (taken from VicRoads website)
The lights basically cycle from red to green every 2 seconds. That's enough to regulate the flow onto the freeway and minmises jams on the entry ramp and at the merge point between the freeway and entry ramp.
So, what would happen on major interstates if highway patrols kept a steady pace? Is that a viable solution? Wouldn't they eventually run up on another wave of cars and ruin everything?
I would be really interesting to see if this actually improved interstate bandwidth during rush hours. But even more interesting, I bet a good portion of drivers would get upset at the fact that there are huge, unused gaps. I wouldn't be surprised to hear from people who think it is grossly more inefficient than regular old traffic jams...
The success of this technique can't be accurately measured by the driver who's trying "smooth" out the waves. It needs to be witnessed from outside of traffic. It usually just moves the problem to behind the "helpful" driver as other drivers can very easily continue to drive competitively and recreate the effect. Even if he's successful in removing the "wave", it's just by decreasing the average speed of traffic.
Actually, if the wave is successfully removed average traffic speed should increase. In fact, the whole post is an argument about ways to improve average traffic speeds.
He basically advocates estimating how fast traffic is really going, and going at that speed. Instead of reaching a bottleneck quickly, you should slow down appropriately in advance so that you never have to actually stop. Note that you (and the people behind you) still get through the bottleneck at the same speed, so there is no cost to you (or them), just less braking and accelerating.
For what it's worth, some freeway entrances near me (Melbourne, Australia) have traffic lights which rate-limit entry onto the freeway in peak hours. This is exactly the same as what this author is trying to do; by rate-limiting cars at entry, they're not actually slowing them down, since it increases average on-freeway speeds.
That's exactly why nobody would play along even if they knew. Big trucks eventually do that because it's painful for them to do the gears 1,2,3 constantly, they stay in second or third and just slow down the whole thing.
Here is the thing where it falls short though:
the guy at the front riding the wave really slow to "help lane locks" will also get merging traffic many many time right in front of him (people taking advantage of the free space), as a result, it won't help that lane but only make it worse if you're stuck behind such driver (or truck).
So if everyone stuck to their lanes, didn't change unless extremely necessary, and played the wave-canceling technique, it would work.
In other words, this will work when cars will be driven by computers hooked together via apis and maybe a traffic controller. I'm not signing for the beta.
I'm not sure if you really got the point of the article: The wave happens because everyone wants to be {X} behind the person in front (usually because they desperately want to block anyone else getting between them and {X}). If you can enforce (for lack of a better word) a constant speed, people can maintain that {X} distance without constant accelerating and braking -- just by coasting at a constant speed.
>Even if he's successful in removing the "wave", it's just by decreasing the average speed of traffic.
How would it decrease the average speed in any practical way? Secondly, it would dramatically reduce the energy consumption of the waves (accelerating and braking constantly) and wear and tear on vehicles. The net benefit of optimizing highway traffic -- in real environmental and economic benefits -- is significant.
>Please don't try this in the left lane.
The left lane has no meaning during congestion. There is no "passing" when the highway is clogged. And yes, this is actually the law in many places. One of the biggest causes of highway inefficiency are the self-important (but usually going nowhere) people who pretend that by driving aggressively, they should be allowed through the congestion.
[+] [-] ritonlajoie|15 years ago|reply
I'm telling you that, because as a frequent driver (well, today I drive a bike but still) in Paris, and kind of very observant, I clearly see that most people are not doing what these drivers do in this experiment. Most of the time, everybody will let a huge space between the car behind them in order to avoid changing the gears too frequently.
On the contrary, on automatic cars (I had one and drove another for 6 months in Canada), that's easier to go & stop & go & stop & go & stop, etc...
Not sure if it's related, but I think it is, in a small proportion.
edit: my english
[+] [-] maw|15 years ago|reply
I'm increasingly convinced that it's due to so many drivers optimizing for local minima, at the expense of not just everyone around them, but of themselves thirty seconds later.
[+] [-] hippich|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vaksel|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Luc|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0x5a177|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] superk|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Sukotto|15 years ago|reply
I base my commuting style on this guys articles. Drive slightly slower than everyone else and let large spaces grow in front of your car. It's a lot harder than it sounds (for me anyway) but when I get it right, it makes my drive much more enjoyable.
People that just HAVE to drive as fast as possible will go around you (you should never do this in the left lane) and everyone else will sort of get in line after you... it looks a bit like those nascar groups where all the cars go exactly the same speed.
[+] [-] 10ren|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] naner|15 years ago|reply
Nobody else I've ridden with will do this (I've suggested it). Instead, they tailgate the slow car, curse like mad, and then almost cause a wreck when the try to pass the slow car in full-speed traffic as soon as they enter the interstate.
If you leave enough space you can easily get up to interstate speed and pass them quickly and effectively.
[+] [-] loewenskind|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] parallax7d|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CaptainDecisive|15 years ago|reply
If you're interested in this there's a nice longer interview with Tom at Streetfilms http://www.streetfilms.org/tom-vanderbilt-talks-traffic or an hour long Google talk.
[+] [-] ajb|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daychilde|15 years ago|reply
I've seen this [appear to] work in Seattle. While I was there, I tried it, and it appeared to work.
However, while I lived in Dallas, I was aware of this idea, and tried it there - and no way. People cut in, people tailgated - it completely doesn't work.
So I think it partially depends on the nature of the city's drivers. And there is something special about Seattle.
[+] [-] daten|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanielStraight|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nradov|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stefs|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanielN|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cakeface|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Natsu|15 years ago|reply
If you do this when traffic is not quite jammed, people are far more upset. It's best used when traffic is being forced to actually stop regularly. You will still get people to honk at you and whatnot, especially once a person or two passes you, but I've long since given up expecting most people to understand the things I do.
[+] [-] mootothemax|15 years ago|reply
It could be related to driving a manual and being lazy, but it helps your concentration no end :)
[+] [-] Deestan|15 years ago|reply
On a side note, I also tend to play that "game" when stuck in slow home-from-holiday traffic over the mountains. Changing speeds all the time while driving manual is such a pain.
[+] [-] nwomack|15 years ago|reply
Imagine a [moving] wall, on an interstate, moving at 30MPH. No matter what is happening behind this wall, it is impossible to maintain an average speed faster than the wall. You can try any amount of tricks to smooth out traffic, but it will be impossible to ever move past this wall. As long as there is a steady stream of traffic, no car will ever do more than 30MPH until this moving wall gets out of the way.
So now let's, more realistically, replace the wall with a bunch of slow drives, and ask 2 important questions:
1. How to get out of this situation? -- We want these drivers to all SPEED UP! It's really as simple as this. Until these bottleneck drivers move out of the way, you can only smooth out traffic, but never increase the speed.
2. How to avoid this problem in the first place? -- In general, there will be some bottleneck. After too many cars are going through this bottleneck at once, there will be slowdown. Ideally, these bottlenecks should be identified and no more than the maximum amount of cars at a time should enter the bottleneck to decrease the speed of traffic.
Of course, that's easier said than done, but I think the important thing to take away from my ramblings is this:
The best way to get rid of a traffic jam is: if you are in the front of the pack and have a chance to accelerate, you should do so as quickly as possible. If everybody were to do this, average speed could then be increased.
[+] [-] wbeaty|15 years ago|reply
In light traffic, some people go far faster than average, but nobody tries to stop them. When we arrive at heavy congestion, don't we suddenly decide to close up ranks to prevent aggressive drivers from passing, stop them from "cutting us off?" If everyone habitually blocks the speeders, then it means we've compressed the traffic pattern past the peak of maximum flow, and pushed it into the unstable realm of stop/go oscillations and standing waves or "ghost jams."
Want jams to vanish? Then do as the pro truckers do and just freaking back off. Happily encourage other cars to merge ahead. (They're not "cutting you off," there's no such thing as "cutting you off." They're just trying to merge into the adjacent lane!) If traffic momentarily slows way down, everyone just make sure to keep an open space that allows merging, and you'll find that it speeds right back up again.
[+] [-] RyanMcGreal|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drv|15 years ago|reply
On a related note, I wonder if "lane closed ahead" signs placed too far ahead actually make this problem worse, since many drivers will immediately merge out of the closing lane far ahead of time, causing a wall of traffic if the front of the line has to slow down for aggressive last-second merges.
[+] [-] kostko|15 years ago|reply
So now when I'm in a jam, I just slow down instead of engaging the speedup, break pattern. Haven't looked behind me though to see if I had any effect on the traffic behind me.
[+] [-] tobtoh|15 years ago|reply
To alleviate this issue "there are traffic lights at some freeway entrances to control the flow of vehicles onto the freeway when the traffic is heavy. When operating, the lights will change quickly, so that when the light is green only one vehicle in each lane will be able to enter the freeway." (taken from VicRoads website)
The lights basically cycle from red to green every 2 seconds. That's enough to regulate the flow onto the freeway and minmises jams on the entry ramp and at the merge point between the freeway and entry ramp.
[+] [-] tobtoh|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colonelxc|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomjen3|15 years ago|reply
In addition, most people would cut you of if you drove slower than the maximum speed.
[+] [-] bryanh|15 years ago|reply
I would be really interesting to see if this actually improved interstate bandwidth during rush hours. But even more interesting, I bet a good portion of drivers would get upset at the fact that there are huge, unused gaps. I wouldn't be surprised to hear from people who think it is grossly more inefficient than regular old traffic jams...
[+] [-] daten|15 years ago|reply
Please don't try this in the left lane.
[+] [-] lars512|15 years ago|reply
He basically advocates estimating how fast traffic is really going, and going at that speed. Instead of reaching a bottleneck quickly, you should slow down appropriately in advance so that you never have to actually stop. Note that you (and the people behind you) still get through the bottleneck at the same speed, so there is no cost to you (or them), just less braking and accelerating.
For what it's worth, some freeway entrances near me (Melbourne, Australia) have traffic lights which rate-limit entry onto the freeway in peak hours. This is exactly the same as what this author is trying to do; by rate-limiting cars at entry, they're not actually slowing them down, since it increases average on-freeway speeds.
[+] [-] keyle|15 years ago|reply
Here is the thing where it falls short though:
the guy at the front riding the wave really slow to "help lane locks" will also get merging traffic many many time right in front of him (people taking advantage of the free space), as a result, it won't help that lane but only make it worse if you're stuck behind such driver (or truck).
So if everyone stuck to their lanes, didn't change unless extremely necessary, and played the wave-canceling technique, it would work.
In other words, this will work when cars will be driven by computers hooked together via apis and maybe a traffic controller. I'm not signing for the beta.
[+] [-] ergo98|15 years ago|reply
>Even if he's successful in removing the "wave", it's just by decreasing the average speed of traffic.
How would it decrease the average speed in any practical way? Secondly, it would dramatically reduce the energy consumption of the waves (accelerating and braking constantly) and wear and tear on vehicles. The net benefit of optimizing highway traffic -- in real environmental and economic benefits -- is significant.
>Please don't try this in the left lane.
The left lane has no meaning during congestion. There is no "passing" when the highway is clogged. And yes, this is actually the law in many places. One of the biggest causes of highway inefficiency are the self-important (but usually going nowhere) people who pretend that by driving aggressively, they should be allowed through the congestion.
[+] [-] tectonic|15 years ago|reply
http://amasci.com
[+] [-] alexyim|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
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