Mathematicians Take Aim At 'Phantom' Traffic Jams

Reader Comments
Back to article

NOT CAUSED BY SOME GOHST BUT BY POEPLE THAT ARENT PAYING ATTENTION TO THE TASK AT HAND-DRIVING.

FRANK of NC 8:11PM September 14, 2009

this is a great mathod

dd of NY 12:55AM August 31, 2009

To, The Hon 'ble Chief Minister,Government of Andhra Pradesh / Tamil Nadu / Karnataka / maharastra / West Bengal / Rajasthan / M.P / Gujrat / Delhi /Chatisgadh and the Transport Ministers of all over the World.[visa and fare and accomodation is to be arranged by your self]
.Honored Sir / Madam ,Offering specialized services by providing novel solutions for city beautification,eradicating traffic congestions without hindering the livelihood of foot-path vendors,totally pollution free & with out traffic signals in the best of public intrest within 100 days-Reg
Honored Sir / Madam,
We have pleasure in offering our humble services for providing hassle free traffic congestions,city beautification without hindering the livelihood of foot-path vendors and total eradication of sir / sound pollution in the best of peoples interest.
Our oragnization " INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS" is fully equipped with afull fledged team of experts Architects,Engineers,Designersand craftsmen to offer expertise in handling the day to day traffic problems, enhance city beautification,pollution free without hindering the livelihood of the foot-path vendors.in India.
With the kind co-operation of the concrerned departments in your state we gaurantee you that this project can be completed within a stipulated period of 100 days
Honoured Sir,on your kind,favourable response we shall be at your services with the CD / Audio / Video demonstration
Imagine how much time and fuel will be saved every day,
Awaiting your favourable response and with kind regards
This is designed for Indian cities where heavy traffic with small roads [ never went out of India how big roads and what kind of traffic no Idea but not like Indian roads any how who ever comes first will be first city with hassel free ]
Yours Sincerely,
For INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS
Gulab Chand Shah
Hyderabad

Gulab Chand Shah 1:51PM August 30, 2009

I totally agree with the research and the mathematical approach to this problem, I think we should look forward to improvise on the concept of HOV lanes, we need to have more of those with restrictions to entry and exits and heavy vehicles, rather than by number of people in the car. That's the future highways. If you see the same people driving in the HOV lane, they are driving at a constant speed. So, let's have all the lanes with a range of speed with specific entry and exit points. For e.g left most lane is 60-70 mph, next one is 50-60 mph and so on.

Dhwanish of TX 8:10PM June 17, 2009

But to only say that more lanes gives less traffic is only scratching the surface. If I'm not mistaken, these folks are trying to answer questions like: if a city has $100 million dollars to spend on road construction should they a) make existing roads bigger, b) build a new road along another route, c) straiten a road with poor visibility. This also is a key piece in answering the question of: if I build x homes, how many lanes are needed on the freeway to keep speeds above 45mph. It helps predict accurate and reasonable amounts to ask home builders to contribute to traffic reduction.
More lanes gives less traffic is all fine and true, but absolute number prediction is a powerful tool for freeway designers.

KenF of AZ 10:52PM June 16, 2009

Traffic is hugely complex and does not behave as our intuition might have us think. I remember reading an article where (in Souther California, I think)a heavily trafficked road was closed for maintenance and all traffic was detoured to another collector highway. Instead of causing problems, they found that transit times improved all the way around! So these results are not 'BS' as JimK said.
Have you ever noticed that semi's, when approaching a jam, will line up abreast and chug along slowly instead of doing the stop/start thing. It may be rooted in them needing to shift less, but when running abreast as they do, they pace the traffic behind them so THEY don't have to do the stop/start thing either. This helps diffuse these self-sustaining backups. Try to do this when you get a chance. Also don't tailgate. If you keep 4-6 seconds between you and vehicle ahead of you, their speed can fluctuate and yours does not (nor do those following you).
If we all participate as thinking people in traffic instead of trying to beat the others by a few seconds, everything will run more smoothly.
Also: We should require all new cars to have sonar tailgate warning alarms to help enforce that safe distance and that buffer space to improve traffic flow.

Mike Bruno of IL 2:48PM June 16, 2009

Well, you're certainly not mathematically inclined, which is likely the reason you're not in charge of making any of these infrastructure decisions. Thankfully.

Paul T. of CT 10:40AM June 16, 2009

What a bunch of bull. To the non-mathematically inclined, isn't it obvious that wider and more roads to the same destination will result in less jams? Do away with cars with mass transportation (probably the crux of this study in support of either tiny cars and/or trains and buses) and there will be less jams -- except for those musically inclined!

JimK of FL 8:34PM June 15, 2009