Systemic traffic jams caused by small groups of drivers, study says

"John Goodwin, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the region's transportation planning agency, says the best way to spread out traffic coming from these neighborhoods is to install metering lights at their freeway onramps, which spaces out the traffic to help both those drivers and everyone else get to their destinations quicker. Though many important Bay Area freeways already have metering lights, such as Interstate 280 in the South Bay and Interstate 680 in the East Bay, others don't."

The Twin Cities metropolitan area, where I live, was the first place in the United States to gain special federal permission to put on-ramp metered signal lights on federal Interstate Highways used heavily by commuters. They empirically help a lot in smoothing traffic. One reason we know that is that for a while a doofus state legislator shut down the freeway metered ramp program, until traffic here became so unbearable that the meters were put back in use. I have heard from friends who travel here from other parts of the country that the ramp meters (implemented as red-yellow-green traffic signals just before a car gets onto the freeway) are confusing to people who usually drive where on-ramps are just unimpeded paths onto the freeway. But they definitely speed up traffic.

The Twin Cities has one federal highway, Interstate 394, with a pair of reversible lanes, usually eastbound (into Minneapolis from the suburbs where I live) in the morning, and westbound (out of the city into the suburbs) in the evenings. That helps with rush hour commuter traffic, except that a lot of cars are eastbound for evening appointments even as commuters are leaving the city, so the reversal of lanes still leaves the regular, nonreversible lanes badly congested each evening. I wonder if a traffic study like the one reported in the interesting article submitted here could identify how to smooth out the traffic problems we still have here.

Given that perspective, metering lights to reduce density seem like exactly the right solution.

[1] http://trafficwaves.org

Metering lights have their use but are limited in how long they can hold up a car whereas if I am at home or work its no problem to adjust my schedule +/- 10 minutes or more to avoid a jam. As more people signed up for such a site it would also become more efficient since it could take into account where and when people actually want to go in its planning calcs.

Consider a two-lane highway that splits into two directions, a very popular direction and an unpopular direction. Inevitably, we will see a group of people who will wait to the last second to cut into the popular lane. These late-comers cause two problems: 1) people to hit the brakes who get cut off in the popular lane, and 2) people to hit the brakes in the unpopular lane who are forced to slow down to allow the selfish drivers to merge.

When I take the generous approach and wait in line, I hate people who cut in. On the other hand, I find myself clever for cutting in at the last second and saving time when I take that approach. I'm still not sure which approach is 'right'. All I know is that the latter will increase overall delays while doing the former will have little to no impact on overall delays but a major impact on my own.

Traffic is a pretty interesting subject.

http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/121220/srep01001/full/srep01...

I guess that's not really the thing if one works in the valley with a huge salary...

Surely the geek bus would be a cool place to be though?

  A groundbreaking study ... has pinpointed a small group of
  drivers making Bay Area freeways miserable for the rest of
  us...

  ...they come from a few outlying neighborhoods and travel
  long distances together in the same direction like schools
  of fish -- clogging up not only the roads they drive on, 
  but also everyone else's.

Why do the (government) planning departments bear NO responsibility for the results of _their_ decisions? Specifically, they have the final say regarding where houses, apartments, roads, shopping centers, ad infinitum, are built. Yet the ultimate fault is with people who simply chose to live in certain locations, rather than bad capacity planning prior to their homes being approved to be built?

They can be used to slow down cars heading into a traffic jam to reduce the arrival rate so the traffic jam can dissolve. Roads with a lower speed limit also fit more cars (need less safety distance) - driving slower means less traffic, so traffic jams can be avoided by reducing the speed limit.

These systems are very wide spread in Germany, covering most Autobahns around major cities.

Sounds like what they need is a train, tram or bus.

``... not just a scientific study.'' Reinforce engineering v. science stereotypes much?

Instead, they come from a few outlying neighborhoods and travel long distances together in the same direction like schools of fish -- clogging up not only the roads they drive on, but also everyone else's.

The notion that they are to blame is asinine. A highway is being utilized beyond capacity, but picking out any group on the highway adds dramatic narrative yet little insight. The suggestion that you remove "just 1%" is surprisingly naive as well, reminding me a bit of this Onion piece - http://www.theonion.com/articles/report-98-percent-of-us-com...

If the highway had less utilization, it would cause many who use mass transit (like light rail) to choose the highway. Rinse repeat. It is how highways in virtually every metropolitan area eventually reach a point of saturation, that new point becoming the natural balance.

Proximity calculations, leading vehicle frequency, trailing vehicle average speed, etc., using existing technology already in place that can be leveraged and innovated on to accurately determine culprits.