A Cure for Traffic Jams

Last night highway maintenance blocked off the northbound and southbound right-hand lanes of Interstate 75 at Dryden Road in Dayton. Three lanes are down to two in both directions. As expected this has turned the northbound area from Dryden Road south to Interstate 675 into a virtual parking lot.

I've been commuting back and forth from Cincinnati to Dayton for about three weeks now, and I have realized that I may need to spend some time reading Musings of a Traffic Psychologist.

There is one simple thing my fellow travellers and I can do to help alleviate these traffic jams and prevent accidents from happening. Not only is this a great idea for improving traffic flow, but it's the LAW. Here it is:MAINTAIN AN ASSURED CLEAR DISTANCE BY NOT FOLLOWING THE VEHICLE IN FRONT OF YOU TOO CLOSELY.

If that seems too banal, then look at it this way:

A single solitary driver, if they stop "competing" and instead adopt some unusual driving habits, can actually wipe away some of the frustrating traffic patterns on a highway. That "nice" noncompetitive driver can erase traffic waves. I suspect that the opposite is also true: normal competitive behavior CREATES the traffic waves.

Suppose we push constantly ahead, change lanes to grab a bit of headway, and always eliminate our forward space in order to prevent other drivers from "cutting us off". If tiny traffic waves appear, we will rush ahead and then brake hard, leaving larger waves behind us. Repeated action causes the waves to grow. Ironic that the angry people who push ahead as fast as possible might unwittingly participate in "amplifying" the very conditions that they hate so much. The solution seems obvious: drivers with a smooth "calm" style will tend to damp out the waves and produce a uniform flow... and the few drivers who intentionally drive at a single constant speed will wipe out the waves entirely.

Read more from Traffic Wave Experiments and a Cure for Waves and Jams.