When an intersection light turns green - all cars should begin rolling together. Waiting for cars in front of you in succession is burning time.
Human nature is to pull as far forward as you can, within certain limits at least. But is that actually optimal? If not, with self-driving cars or some other technological assistance, maybe we could increase the efficiency of intersections that use signals.
Data Transfer allows for instant start/stop so the car can actually stop before the light turns, allowing the cars on the other side to go quicker and go immediately.
In the future, we may not even see self driving cars stopping at red lights (think of all intersections as four way roads)
I suspect it might be good for getting through that intersection faster, but in general I think it’s probably best for all traffic if stopped traffic takes up as little room as possible.
Even for long blocks, you'd want to figure out that the light will be green for X seconds, which allows Y cars to get through, so only Y cars (and no more) would line up with the required spacing between them, and the ones behind that would pack in more tightly to save space. Then while the light is right, the next Y cars could get themselves into the correct configuration.
I haven't done the maths, but it wouldn't surprise me if they're about the same.
Will not work. The safe distance between cars is negligible in traffic lights but a lot more in moving traffic. At least two seconds is considered reasonable although in reality much lower distances are seen.
The "rolling together" would only work if the queue to the traffic light would copy the distance needed by moving cars.
That is, the cars would be spaced 10-40 meters apart while waiting for green. Only then all cars could floor it and accelerate together without having to wait for the first units to run away first.
Let's say we are in an area with a 60km/h speed limit.
Going 60 km/h you do need a wide gape between cars.
But once you stop at a traffic light you should leave enough of a gap to see where the types car in front of you touch the road. That way you are not too close to get around the car if it gets stuck.
When the light goes green, lets say the first car accelerates slowly and only reaches 30km/h by the time they cross the traffic light. If every car behind waited until there was 1.5 car length gap, then only half the cars would get through compared to if they all accelerated at the same speed at the same time, maintaining a smaller gap until they cross the traffic light.
You only need the large gap once you've accelerated up to a much higher speed.
You can see clearly from the simulation that having the opportunity to move around an obstruction doesn't stop the ensuing slow down from occurring because you have to slow down and reduce the bandwidth of the road to move around the obstruction.
Going from small gap while standing in lights to large gap at a higher speed cannot be reached in unison.
The later cars must inevitably accelerate slower or the first cars must accelerate faster in order for the larger gaps to appear. So even if all cars did in fact start rolling at the exact same time when the light turns green the acceleration of any tailing car is bounded by some safety margin as a function of speed.
I agree. But my point is that people can maintain the small gap at lower speeds until they cross to the other side of the traffic lights. (So that more people can get through) then they can spread out.
Almost...as if...they were mechanically linked...
When you're stopped you don't need a buffer so much for when things go wrong, but at higher speeds you need a bigger buffer, and having space helps avoid mass catastrophes when some freak storm knocks a tree branch onto the road or a car malfunctions or mechanical failure/wear and tear.
https://www.scania.com/group/en/platooning-automated-driving...
https://platooningensemble.eu/news/using-its-g5-for-efficien...
Agreed. I've always suspected/known this. Just play with the acceleration settings in the simulation for proof.
I hate when the light goes green and people wait for a gap before driving. Just go, you are barely going 20km/h at this stage.
If everyone accelerated quickly until they were on the other side of the traffic light, you could get double the amount of cars through. No need to break the speed limit.
If they didn't move, then obviously it's retarded to jsut start driving.
My point is when the car in front of you _does_ start moving, you need to move too, at the same speed/acceleration. Not wait.