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It seems to me the problem with adding a new road is that each driver tries to pick the optimal route for themselves but this causes more congestion overall. A bit like Prisoners Dilemma I guess. Every villain to himself. But what if drivers could be routed by a central algorithm by Google assistant for instance?

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There's an analogous concept to Nash equilibria in transport engineering known as Wardrop's First Principle. In essence, at equilibrium no user has an incentive to change their behaviour by choosing an alternative route. A 'central routing algorithm' that optimises over the system is in essence Wardrop's Second Principle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Glen_Wardrop

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