What Are Traffic Waves and Why Do They Happen So Much?
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Re: What Are Traffic Waves and Why Do They Happen So Much?
#2This reminds me of a piece on traffic I read quite a few years ago and might have been on reddit or even perhaps slashdot. I still follow its advice to this day when having to brave the 101.
It discussed traffic waves and our reactions to them. The repeatable waves this article mentions come from (most of) the individual drivers driving faster than the capacity of the road to carry them all. So they bunch up at some point, catching those in front, everyone slows down for a bit and then the bunch "evaporates" from the front... repeat. Those who get out of the slowdown speed to the next one. It also discussed the effects of merging, which have a high cost as lanes get fuller, also why you'll see lights at on-ramps to mitigate.
The recommendation was to slow down, leave plenty of space ahead for others to merge, and try to get going at as close to a single speed as possible to conserve momentum, gas, wear & tear, nerves, etc. If packed enough you can let the car idle push you along around 5mph/8kph, which is what I aim for in that situation. Feels better than speed-up/break/slow-down over and over.
It also responded to questions such as, "what if everyone around me wants me to go faster?" It happens, but those people tend to drive off in a huff. Once one or two of them do, you'll find a more relaxed driver behind you for the rest of the trip. The impatient driver won't get ahead much anyway so you can wink at them when you catch up at the next slowdown.
Re: What Are Traffic Waves and Why Do They Happen So Much?
#3Nice visualization!
I made something similar a while back (refresh the page if it doesn't start properly): http://sinelaw.github.io/jammed/src/
It includes drivers with different personalities (buses accelerate slower, some drivers are daydreaming, etc.) and lane changing (people change lanes when it's beneficial)
Re: What Are Traffic Waves and Why Do They Happen So Much?
#4Nice visualization! I made something similar a while back (refresh the page if it doesn't start properly): http://sinelaw.github.io/jammed/src/ It includes drivers with different personalities (buses accelerate slower, some drivers are daydreaming, etc.) and lane changing (people change lanes when it's beneficial)
Very nice, but since there is no transition the lane changing looks a bit too jerky so that at first I thought it was broken.
Re: What Are Traffic Waves and Why Do They Happen So Much?
#5Nice visualization! I made something similar a while back (refresh the page if it doesn't start properly): http://sinelaw.github.io/jammed/src/ It includes drivers with different personalities (buses accelerate slower, some drivers are daydreaming, etc.) and lane changing (people change lanes when it's beneficial)
Very nice, but since there is no transition the lane changing looks a bit too jerky so that at first I thought it was broken.
Right - that needs to be fixed. Besides the graphical issue, the lane changing is instantaneous, which is not realistic.
Re: What Are Traffic Waves and Why Do They Happen So Much?
#6I find this happens a lot more in some countries than others, and it's not down to levels of traffic on the road, it's down to driving habits. I think the UK has done well with driver education and variable speed limits to mitigate this, and zipper merging is the norm.
Re: What Are Traffic Waves and Why Do They Happen So Much?
#7Whenever the topic of self driving cars comes up in conversation I let people know I think self driving cars are going to solve a lot of our traffic woes.
I'm not sure if a model exists yet for cars 'putting out' traffic waves, but I'm sure once we have self driving cars and they start talking to each other this is going to be of great interest.
I'm hoping we can effectively 'micro' away some degree of congestion.
Re: What Are Traffic Waves and Why Do They Happen So Much?
#8Whenever the topic of self driving cars comes up in conversation I let people know I think self driving cars are going to solve a lot of our traffic woes. I'm not sure if a model exists yet for cars 'putting out' traffic waves, but I'm sure once we have self driving cars and they start talking to each other this is going to be of great interest. I'm hoping we can effectively 'micro' away some degree of congestion.
I think people overstate the degree to which self-driving cars will actively 'talk' to each other. And I actually think it's somewhat detrimental to advocating for self-driving cars, because the immediate thought is that communication acting as a channel for malware. And that's a fairly justified fear.
In the end, I think most of the communication will just be in terms of the fact that self-driving cars interacting with other self-driving cars will be much smoother and more normal than existing traffic.
Look at flocking birds. They're not talking to each other, really. They're reacting in a complex but uniform way to their peers. I suspect self-driving cars will look like that even without active communication.
Re: What Are Traffic Waves and Why Do They Happen So Much?
#9This reminds me of a piece on traffic I read quite a few years ago and might have been on reddit or even perhaps slashdot. I still follow its advice to this day when having to brave the 101. It discussed traffic waves and our reactions to them. The repeatable waves this article mentions come from (most of) the individual drivers driving faster than the capacity of the road to carry them all. So they bunch up at some…
One problem of the "car idle" in terms of humans is that it takes almost constant attention to make sure you don't bump into the cars in front. Compare that to the speed-up/break/slow-down which allows time to relax. In my own driving I tend to have a more relaxed speed-up/slow-down cycle which is somewhere in-between the two modes you describe.
Re: What Are Traffic Waves and Why Do They Happen So Much?
#10This reminds me of a piece on traffic I read quite a few years ago and might have been on reddit or even perhaps slashdot. I still follow its advice to this day when having to brave the 101. It discussed traffic waves and our reactions to them. The repeatable waves this article mentions come from (most of) the individual drivers driving faster than the capacity of the road to carry them all. So they bunch up at some…
I think you're thinking of http://trafficwaves.org/trafexp.html
I read it too, years ago, and also follow its recommendations. (And I ended up in the Seattle area, so I've gotten to experience the same traffic the author did...) It makes traffic less annoying for sure, even if there were 0 other benefits I'd do it. The only freeway issue that annoys me these days is people who don't keep right except to pass during non peak times.