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The utility of switching lanes when stuck in traffic

blogs.reuters.com

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Re: The utility of switching lanes when stuck in traffic

#41

Post by cafard »

We have arguments in the car from time to time, for we live just north of a half-mile stretch of road that is is congested for most of the daylight hours. My argument is that switching to the street a couple of blocks over produces the illusion of progress, but no real gain. Sticking to the nearer road is obviously stop and go, but lacks a couple of bottlenecks further down, and is thereafter faster.

I'm not sure whether my reasoning convinces my wife, or she just finds the left-hand turns inconvenient.

Re: The utility of switching lanes when stuck in traffic

#42

Post by logfromblammo »

Xero wrote: post #29
luckyno13 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about not going the route of "zen the #$%^ out." I prefer the drivers around me to be aware of their surroundings and conscious of their driving, not lost in dreamworld.

zen != daydreaming

When I'm stuck in traffic, I consider that a time to submerge the ego, embrace the virtue of patience, and realize that the goal of all drivers should be for everyone to get everyone unstuck and return to normal traffic flow.

So rather than sit bumper-to-bumper, I will open a car-sized space ahead of me, and intentionally allow "line jumper" cars to enter it. Rather than alternately hitting the gas and brake, I'll just let my car roll, smoothing out the wavelike interactions in congested traffic.

If you stop thinking purely of your own self-interest, you can act to improve the overall flow of traffic, rather than just try to get yourself out of it as soon as possible. Think of it as an engineering problem. Instead of how to get 1 person home as quickly as possible, try to get 10000 cars to their destinations with the lowest median travel time, using only your ability to control one car in the flow of traffic.

Re: The utility of switching lanes when stuck in traffic

#43

Post by will_work4tears »

arjie wrote: post #24
mattgreenrocks wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why driving is exhausting. There's always a few people who, evidently lacking any real stimulation in their lives, feel the need to constantly jockey for positions on the road, endangering everyone around them for a mere ego trip. It seems like many of these drivers view their driving habits as reflections on them as a person; e.g. they cannot appear weak by yielding to others (even if yielding produces an op…

Haha, so true. A while back I settled into the 'average traffic speed plus large gap' mode. Less braking, lower clutch use, and more pleasant driving. As a bonus, I get to feel superior to everyone not employing this strategy.

I'm speculating on this being pure selection bias (and the natural desire for all humans to cherry pick something of which to feel superior about).

I'm a middle of the road kind of driver. Almost an equal number of people pass me (sometimes at crazy speeds) as I pass myself. My dad is a slow and steady type (and also feels superior about it), so I get to hear all his "stories" about how so and so passed him and sped up fast but hit every light just like he did, but he wasted less gas (or some other reasoning). However, he conveniently doesn't note the likely five other times in the same scenario where the guy hit every light and left my dad in the dust.

Personally, I notice people I pass a lot because of my dad's comments, and am very self conscious of when I pass somebody but get nowhere. However, most of the time, I passed that person because they were just driving too slow (I'll not slow down and go 5 mph under the speed limit just to make some random person happy), and even if they are going the speed limit, if they drive inconsistently (hit the brakes, slow down/speed up randomly, etc), I just want to be away from them and somewhere safer/less stressful to drive.

I use cruise control a LOT, so I'm annoyed at having to hit my brakes for no reason other than some stranger's whim.

Sometimes we aren't jockeying for position, we are just getting away from somebody.

Re: The utility of switching lanes when stuck in traffic

#44

Post by dworin »

Reminds me of this NYTimes article about queuing theory: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/opinion/sunday/why-waiting...

I tell this story all the time to help clients understand that customer perception is more important than reality:

"SOME years ago, executives at a Houston airport faced a troubling customer-relations issue. Passengers were lodging an inordinate number of complaints about the long waits at baggage claim. In response, the executives increased the number of baggage handlers working that shift. The plan worked: the average wait fell to eight minutes, well within industry benchmarks. But the complaints persisted.

Puzzled, the airport executives undertook a more careful, on-site analysis. They found that it took passengers a minute to walk from their arrival gates to baggage claim and seven more minutes to get their bags. Roughly 88 percent of their time, in other words, was spent standing around waiting for their bags.

So the airport decided on a new approach: instead of reducing wait times, it moved the arrival gates away from the main terminal and routed bags to the outermost carousel. Passengers now had to walk six times longer to get their bags. Complaints dropped to near zero."

Re: The utility of switching lanes when stuck in traffic

#45

Post by logfromblammo »

lutorm wrote: post #10
3JPLW wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of their perceptions or actual travel speeds, the lane-switchers could be providing a much needed liquidity between the more dynamic right lanes (with entrances and exits) and the more static left lanes. Perhaps it's in doing so that they unwittingly ensure that everyone arrives at the same time. (Although it's almost certainly not the optimal time…)

I was thinking the opposite - lane switchers cause "turbulence" in the flow and hence contribute to slowing everyone down.

Lane switchers are transverse waves. Acceleration and braking are longitudinal waves.

I am of the opinion that lane switchers have very low impact on traffic speed, whereas people who gun the engine and slam on their brakes are most directly responsible for slowdowns.

Of course, this presumes that the lane switcher does not switch in a manner that causes someone to slam on his brakes.

Thus, if my theory is correct, attempting to smooth out the longitudinal speed waves should take priority over transversely vibrating cars that could potentially exploit that strategy to move faster than the rest of traffic, at the expense of everyone else.

Re: The utility of switching lanes when stuck in traffic

#46

Post by edgarvaldes »

dworin wrote: post #44

Reminds me of this NYTimes article about queuing theory: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/opinion/sunday/why-waiting... I tell this story all the time to help clients understand that customer perception is more important than reality: "SOME years ago, executives at a Houston airport faced a troubling customer-relations issue. Passengers were lodging an inordinate number of complaints about the long waits at baggage…

And reminds me of this: http://davidmaister.com/articles/the-psychology-of-waiting-l...

"Sasser (et al) provide good examples of both managing the perception and the expectation of waiting times. For the former, they offer the example of ‘the well-known hotel group that received complaints from guests about excessive waiting times for elevators. After an analysis of how elevator service might be improved, it was suggested that mirrors be installed near where guests waited for elevators. The natural tendency of people to check their personal appearance substantially reduced complaints, although the actual wait for the elevators was unchanged. "

Re: The utility of switching lanes when stuck in traffic

#47

Post by logfromblammo »

slantyyz wrote: post #37
lutorm wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking the opposite - lane switchers cause "turbulence" in the flow and hence contribute to slowing everyone down.

I don't know how it is elsewhere, but in the Toronto, Canada area, driving behaviours have gotten really bad over the past 20 years. We have the worst kind of lane switchers. Here, they often jump into the short lane on the right, which is reserved for cars entering and exiting the road, to cheat back in. This is a real problem, because they slow down traffic even more when they have to force their way back in.

The counterintuitive solution to this is to always make room to let those people back in. You aren't helping them "cheat", not really. You are keeping a potentially dangerous driver in front of you, where you can more easily keep an eye on them, and allowing them the opportunity to get the hell away from your car.

Re: The utility of switching lanes when stuck in traffic

#48

Post by sirmarksalot »

npizzolato wrote: post #22
rojoca wrote: post #11

> This is important: the really painful part of being stuck in traffic is not, really, the actual amount of time that it takes to get from Point A to Point B. Rather, it’s the “stuck” bit. I've noticed this tends to not matter so much if you're not the one driving, more so if you're in the backseat. Self-drive cars anyone?

Or the lower technology version that's available today: public transportation.

The stress of commuting isn't from the physical act of driving, but from having to negotiate a crowded space. Regardless if it's a highway, bus, or a sidewalk, when you're in a crowd, you're forced to play a zero-sum game with the people around you. Even in cultures where people don't drive, the commute is listed as one of the largest stresses people experience.

Self-driving cars are great because for the first time, you have a machine that commutes for you. There's no competition to get in the car, no competition to sit down in the car, and once the car starts moving, you don't have to care about how the car navigates the competition on the road.

It's true that on the large scale, it's less efficient than public transportation, but on an individual level, it's the best option.

Re: The utility of switching lanes when stuck in traffic

#49

Post by logfromblammo »

edgarvaldes wrote: post #46
dworin wrote: post #44

Reminds me of this NYTimes article about queuing theory: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/opinion/sunday/why-waiting... I tell this story all the time to help clients understand that customer perception is more important than reality: "SOME years ago, executives at a Houston airport faced a troubling customer-relations issue. Passengers were lodging an inordinate number of complaints about the long waits at baggage…

And reminds me of this: http://davidmaister.com/articles/the-psychology-of-waiting-l... "Sasser (et al) provide good examples of both managing the perception and the expectation of waiting times. For the former, they offer the example of ‘the well-known hotel group that received complaints from guests about excessive waiting times for elevators. After an analysis of how elevator service might be improved, it was sugg…

I once worked in a building that installed television sets near all elevators. Unfortunately, those televisions were almost universally tuned to ESPN or Fox News, when not simply turned off. I usually just took the stairs.

Re: The utility of switching lanes when stuck in traffic

#50

Post by ScottBurson »

panarky wrote: post #3

Counterintuitively, in stop-and-go traffic everybody spends more time watching others pass them than passing others. Let's say you have to drive 100 km. Half of the distance your lane moves at 100 km/h, and the other half your lane creeps along at 10 km/h. So you'll spend 50 / 100 + 50 / 10 = 5.5 hours in the car, at an average speed of 18.18 km/h. For every one minute you spend passing other cars, you'll spend 10 mi…

Excellent observation!

Sometimes I pick a car in the next lane to track and compare my progress with. Although one of us will sometimes leave the other behind for a few minutes, usually we return to rough parity eventually.

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