This article is so horribly incorrect and fails right at the very beginning with the wrong assumptions and a idea that isn't thought through. What the author forgot is to take by far the most important variable into account:
SPEEDSo let's quote the author:
"The important fact: there is a limit to the number of cars that can pass by a given point on the highway in a given amount of time, and that limit is one car every 2 seconds, per lane. So imagine you are in heavy traffic during rush hour. There are a certain number of cars in line in front of you. Let’s pick a point on the road to call the front of the line — say, the point at which you plan to exit the highway. The line gets shorter by one car every 2 seconds. If there are 1,000 cars in front of you, it’s going to take a minimum of 2,000 seconds for you to get to the front of the line. It doesn’t matter whether people are kind and let cars merge in front of them, zipper-style. It doesn’t matter how much stop-and-go there is. The simple fact is that it takes 2 seconds per car for you to get to the front of the line, and there are some cars in front of you that have to get there before you do."
Ok this is correct. BUT: I don't care if it takes me 2,000s if my exit is 44 miles away (80mph) but I do if my exit is 10miles away.
So you drive along at 80mph and there is cars around you everywhere. Do you care? No, you're covering distance. It's the same as if you were all by yourself on the highway. The distance between cars is absolutely irrelevant and so is the time between cars if you still go 80mph. Nobody would call it a traffic jam.
Next quote:
"Leaving space in front of your car for people who are trying to merge won’t solve anything."
Yes it absolutely does. And it again solves one very very important piece of a traffic jam: Average speed. Leaving space is crucial. It allows people to do two things:
- Accelerate
- Not having to brake
These two are crucial to get speed up and thus resolve traffic jams. Incidentally he linked an article which visualizes exactly this:
http://www.smartmotorist.com/traffic-and-safety-guideline/tr...
(Section: Merging-lane Traffic Jams, A Simple Cure)
You can see on the right side how his "cars per second" is _exactly the same_ than on the left side. Yet, everybody will be much happier on the right side. Why? Because the speed's been increased and people in the cars cover ground.
Next quote:
"Suppose you’re on a 2-lane (each way) highway and one lane is closed up ahead due to construction. Now the flow rate of your lane is cut in half (or there are twice as many cars in line in front of you, depending on how you want to look at it). Road signs commonly ask you to use both lanes up to the point of the bottleneck. That’s reasonable advice, but it’s not going to get anyone home faster"
Yes it absolutely does. Why? We are all programmers here so let's talk in our lingo: This is our API. Our interface that we agree on. If people follow the interface (rule), then we have people agree on it and we are predictable and prevent braking. This is exactly what we want. Increase speed (with gaps), prevent breaking, be predicable. No surprising cars merging means no breaking and thus increase in average speed which in turn means no more traffic jam.
Please, disregard this article. The conclusions are wrong, the assumptions are wrong and the deductions and the terrible advice he gives at the end is wrong.