Study: Traffic lights should respond to cars, not the other way around
sciencenews.org
sciencenews.org
Lets have Tolls - but you get a refund when you are delayed. I imagine construction would suddenly be done 24/7 and be finished in half the time. Traffic light systems would be heavily automated/AI so that there isn't much traffic.
Instead they give out construction contracts to the "cheapest", which ignores all of the wasted time and gas the public endures in traffic, a secondary cost of the project.
You would be trading one set of inconveniences for another - in the case of nighttime construction you're typically paying the construction workers more (anywhere from time-and-a-half to triple time IME) plus the environmental mitigation for the nighttime activities (noise in particular).
And why do you have to pay so much? Construction workers have one of the highest unemployment rates, I bet if you start offering 3 shifts at day you would have people sign up for time or time and a half max.
IME (having worked on several NYC-area construction noise assessments) that's not true, and when it is true, it's usually because the traffic disruption would be so severe, the project has no other choice. MTA/NYCT work also tends to occur at night because that's when train schedules are reduced and workers can have room/time to work.
And why do you have to pay so much?
Because working such a physically demanding job at night for extended-periods, especially in cold/wet weather sucks (again, speaking from experience).
Looking at the Big Dig night work, younger guys were likely to sign up for night work to make a quick buck while the older, more experienced guys (usually with families) would use their seniority to get on day shifts so they could lead normal lives. This causes problems because you want the more experienced guys working nights so they get things right the first and don't have to wake up project engineers when they encounter problems, so you wind up upping the hourly wages to try to attract those experienced workers.
http://commontragedies.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/cars-vs-b...
There's a very important vehicle missing from the list: trucks.
Add "cargo" to "people" and, suddenly, it's no longer easy to measure. How many cars are carrying cargo in addition to persons, thereby being partially a truck in function?
I'd be curious to hear your speculation about how much cargo is actually move by cars during peak traffic volume.
I don't have a guess as to the magnitude, but, anecdotally, even[1] at peak commute times, I see plenty of dedicated delivery vehicles, as well as people visibly carrying something large and bulky, such as sports equipment[2], changes of clothes, baby stuff[3], and gardening tools.
I wouldn't at all be surprised if the vast majority of peak commute trips are just trying people going "from point A to point B," but even a single, unpredictably time, cargo-carrying trip per week for a particular individual is adequate incentive for having the cability the rest of the time.
[1] or especially, since that's mostly when I'm moving slowly enough to gaze at other vehicles at length.
[2] a friend of mine commuted by train and/or bike for a while and eventually abandoned it, in part, because it meant he could no longer play ice hockey mid-day on workdays.
[3] strollers and diaper bags I've come to recognize, and, if one can extrapolate from child safety seats, there are even more unseen.
People are.
The important distinction is that a car is a "place for my stuff."[1] I carry tools[1], erythritol, and emergency[2] preparedness items, at the very least. My largest car carries enough of a subset of my home that it's even a comfortable place to sleep, if need be.
I could certainly do without, but, having done so in the past, it's not worth it. Similarly, carrying a large enough subset on a bike, bus, or both, as I've done when I bike commuted, was a constant annoyance. Routinely/exclusively bicycling also requires additional cargo in the form of lights, locks, and minor repair tools.
[1] cf the late, great George Carlin
[2] As with my usage of "cargo," this is general, including such things as laptop.
[3] In California, we call them "earthquake"
Lights and locks are mounted on a bike, and minor repair tools can be as well (it's not necessary; the last time I got a flat tire is 4 years ago using a bike every day). I do nearly all trips on a bike, some with a bag of books & laptop or with a bag of groceries. The number of times I need to carry items that are too large or heavy to transport on a bike is very small. You can carry more with a bike than without a bike...
> I could certainly do without, but, having done so in the past, it's not worth it. Similarly, carrying a large enough subset on a bike, bus, or both, as I've done when I bike commuted, was a constant annoyance.
I don't understand what you were carrying. Can you elaborate on this?
Both "permanently" and "ton" are exaggerations, but, aside from that, yes. I value preparedness and independence.
It's not stuff that you need to transport from A to B
I'm not sure what you're trying to assert here, but "to each according to need" echos a bit of socialism. I may not, strictly, need, but I most certainly want. Telling people just to "do without" doesn't, historically, seem to be an effective solution.
I don't understand what you were carrying. Can you elaborate on this?
I think you understand the nature of what I was carrying, but we merely disagree on the necessity or desirability of carrying it and, perhaps, definition, such as where it's carried (paniers, backpack, or mounted[1]).
[1] None of which even remotely approach the privacy and security of an automobile. Is a firearm part of ones disaster preparedness kit? Nothing doing if the kit has to be in a backpack carried with one everywhere.
Most traffic systems are automated and their goal is to MOVE TRAFFIC THROUGH. The minimal use sensors in the roads to help determine when to switch lights. The most advanced are integrated and use many metrics and algorithms in controlling traffic signals http://trafficinfo.lacity.org/html/atsac_1.html
There have been a lot of places/projects where all I ever saw were closed lanes with some inactive construction equipment parked nearby. Last month was the first time I ever saw a construction project with crews working all three shifts -- it was quite the novelty, since I had never even heard of such a thing before.
But there would be plenty of incentive to move traffic through as fast as possible, just as there is to move people through theaters and restaurants as fast as possible.
And, as with theaters and restaurants and motels and many other things, private roads would charge you more at peak times. People would try to travel at cheaper times if possible and try to reschedule activities. Traffic would actually keep flowing at the pace that gets the most cars through the network.
And this would actually reduce the amount of road building required. People would have more incentive to take mass transit. And we'd have less smog and less stress because people wouldn't be stuck in traffic on a daily basis.
And we could lower taxes. Road building is expensive and so is defending the oil. People who use the roads the most would be the ones paying for them.
In short: each car has a piggy bank. As you're sitting at a red traffic light, it dispenses tokens into your piggy bank. When you go through a green traffic light you have to give some tokens back. Here's the catch: when deciding who to give the green to, a traffic light awards the green light to the compatible set of lanes which have cars with the most total tokens. [Also: tokens expire. And emergency vehicles can be given infinite tokens].
Thus if you've been waiting at a zillion reds, you'll accumulate enough tokens to force your way through green lights later on. The idea is to spread the pain.
I think the advantage with the system shown is they are only measuring throughput rather than keeping tabs on individual cars. Thus I assume it's an easier problem to solve.
The approach does require two-way communication between cars and nearby traffic lights. But the approaches that various people are suggesting, including this article, largely rely on communication as well: just one-way. The lights generally need to be able to detect cars approaching and at quite a distance. This requires the cars announcing their presence: either the lights have a sophisticated sensor system (lots of plates in the road, or a vision system) or -- more likely -- the cars need to have beacons installed which let the lights know they're coming. A great many of these methods also benefit from knowing not only that cars are approaching but where they intend to go -- are they going to turn left or right or straight -- well before they get into their lanes. This requires additional signaling.
What Gabriel Balan picked up on, is that to make the system fairer and more efficient, you need to be able to transfer historical information from light to light. Not only information about how many cars are coming, but what their previous histories were. If you don't want the lights communicating with one another -- essentially tracking your car -- you can do what he did: have the cars build up a history on their own and relay that to the lights as they approach them.
The congestion charging system in London works in a very similar way - it doesn't pretend to know when a car is going to come in or out - just reads the plate and stores it in the database.
ROUNDABOUT. Build some.
I now avoid certain routes through town because I'm afraid of getting in an accident.
They're so used to driving in straight lines. Their cars are simply not made for corners.
I guess you need to build roundabouts, update the cars so they can corner, and educate the public on how to steer.
And who hasn't seen photos of the traffic on Etoile (the roundabout that goes around the Arc de Triomphe)? Nightmare! All of those stories people tell abot Etoile are true - I sometimes go up there on foot so that guests can see the arc de triomphe up close, and I see an accident about once in every three trips. Insane.
The future, in this sense at least, has already arrived.
Sure there are plenty of places where this is not common yet, but infrastructure upgrades are expensive.
You don't need to place sensors anymore, a simple camera can do it.
As for a 'simple' camera, nothing that you deploy in all weather conditions is ever simple if it is to operate reliably.
If they optimize the flow of cars in a little time there will be more people using cars in those areas and no operations researcher can solve that bigger traffic jam. People, like any biological entity, adapt to the environment.
smoother traffic flow and reduced time on the roads would also reduce accidents, which would require fewer vehicles be manufactured, which is a nontrivial environmental impact in and of itself. oh and fewer humans would die in horrific accidents.
I agree though, that it's a testable proposition, and not self-evident.
True, but believe it or not it is incredibly difficult to get right.
I'm on my local council and we recently did some prep work to look into adding "AI" to the towns traffic lights.
Here is the problem; you have to do a significant portion of the lights - or it actually gets worse. A stupid amount of planning goes into light sequencing (at least it does here....) on a macro-scale - so all of the towns lights are pretty much synced to optimize traffic flow as much as possible.
Imagine doing that on the fly for the entire town.
What ''has'' been suggested, and looks good, is a sort of hybrid approach - where traffic levels are monitored and a number of different optimized sequences used to clear traffic jams as appropriate. Even this is a pain because it is essentially the same as replacing the towns system three or four times over :)
And we are lucky in having a medium sized town with large areas of uninhabited farmland (read little traffic) around it.
Not that it isn't a good idea - but I don't think it is a very simple option.
This is a broken system in which much of my time is wasted daily, and the "green wave" is not the system's goal. It's nice to see some people experimenting to find better ways to regulate traffic. It should be obvious that 90% of the time the current flow is not the calculated daily average.
After all, Since when do 50,000 cars/hour drive on a street at 2am?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Monderman
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/traffic.html
there is also a brief interview on youtube with him explaining his theory of change.
Nobody moves, pretty simple heuristic solves for reducing automobile accidents.
Also: Roundabouts.
Edit: I guess I should read the two links that I open in background tabs _before_ posting. Now I feel like a fool.
I'd prefer if they just made the loops a little more sensitive. A 200 lb piece of metal would seem to suffice for a true positive...
Sure, you might get a false positive from time to time, but whatever causes the false positive probably shouldn't be in the car lane in the first place.
The problem is when you're alone and there are no other cars in your lane. If you're totally alone, you can run the red light, if there is other traffic just not in your lane you're screwed.
I've sat at lights for several cycles trying to get a left turn signal, only to be required to run the light (illegally) to get through while traffic built up behind me. Not cool. They need a better way of sensing cars.
Another cool thing is the countdown in seconds for the pedestrian lights.