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Traffic Control | |||||||||||||||||
Why not post instructions or suggestions on how to reduce traffic buildup? Example: When a segment of highway is under construction, and three lanes narrow to two, why not post a sign asking drivers to stay in their own lane until they reach the merge point. At which they would then post signs instructing all automobiles to merge using the zipper technique. The main reason we have traffic is because people simply don't know the most effective way to handle changes in the road!
sup3r_hero, Oct 01 2004
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I have to offer that most drivers already know that when a lane reduction is coming they need to merge into the adjacent lane. Signs usually are posted well in advance of the reduction giving drivers plenty of time to move over.
Human nature being what it is though means that some people will see the empty lane as a means to get ahead of some of the traffic. These drivers stay in the dropped lane until the barrels force them over. When they finally merge they squeeze into whatever space is available. Usually this will cause the car now behind the just merged car to slow because the comfort zone has been reduced. (Defensive drivers try to keep a safe stopping distance between themselves and the car in front of them at all times.) This has a chain reaction effect on all the vehicles behind them.
When the next person waits until the last minute to merge the effect is compounded and traffic is slowed further. After a while traffic ends up stopping (maybe for only a second or two. . .) and the traffic "slinky" is born. We have all been in traffic on the highway that is stopped wondering how bad the accident just over the next hill is only to start moving at normal speeds again without having observed an accident site, haven't we.
Even if everyone is a good, level-headed, defensive driver the volume of traffic on the highway will create a slinky during peak times, even without a lane reduction, because everyone has a different comfort level. All it takes is one person's "panic brake" in high volume traffic to eventually create the slinky. When this happens on a daily basis I believe it's properly referred to as the "Los Angeles Freeway System". ;-)
Sup3r_hero has it right. The conventional wisdom on how to merge is flat-out wrong. Signs are part of the problem... I'm working on a new idea post laying out Merging 101 in more detail. :-)
establish a standard acceleration rate. when signals turn green, all drivers proceed at the same time and at the standard accleration. Hence no slinky and through put would mostlikely double or triple on a green cycle.