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Comment by petercooper | Hacker News Reader

You often get these sorts of "lies" on the road network. Signs will attempt to send you on a lengthy jaunt around the outside of a town even if the road through town is major and quicker.

Google Maps and sat nav devices tend to send you the more direct route, however, so I wonder if this technique may prove useless in future and force significant redesigns or even laws to prevent navigational devices making these suggestions.

A memorable one for me is the A6/A7 through Lyon (France). The signs are adamant you should take a 10 mile detour to head south of Lyon despite the A6 (solely marked as "Lyon Centre") going in a straight line under the city without interruption. August is probably the only time it makes sense and even then the entire A6 is blocked as it is..

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Users generally want the fastest route, which is congestion-dependent. If they directed everyone down the shortcut it would become congested, and wouldn't be the fastest route any more, and you'd be asking why they directed everyone down it :-)

A good moment to plug the book 'Traffic' - http://tomvanderbilt.com/traffic/the-book/

A good (geeky) read about all kinds of traffic issues including routing.

This isn't too far away from Braess's paradox[1], which is based upon drivers making assumptions about the quickest path and attempting to optimize their journey at the cost of everyone's journey time.

It works for network traffic too as OSPF will pick the shortest path, but we can alter routing tables to correct for that.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox

Electric current comes to mind.

If government wants to enact regulation to direct traffic flow, it's far more effective to use simple tolls for this purpose. London is, in fact, a pioneer in that kind of planning (to their credit, IMHO, though I'm sure there are a lot of drivers who disagree).

HN has recently had some discussion about number plate recognition cameras.

I wonder if people not in England are aware that London is full of these things, all linked to the DVLA (car licensing people) who mail you bills if you don't pay the toll.

It would be TFL (Transport for London) not DVLA who deal with the congestion charge, surely?

Yes, (or rather a offshoot company) but they go straight to the DVLA and get the drivers details. All automated.

The DVLA does a fairly good job of acting like a ETL tool - I paid for my road tax recently. Legally I need to have an MOT (road worthiness) certificate, car insurance, valid drivers license - each one passes data back to the DVLA and when I go to pay up, I no longer have to traipse to the post office with documents in hand, just hit their website and they already know my documents are in order.

Only a small liberal part of me worries, the rest takes the convenice

You don't have to identify with anything to recoil at the abstract thought of Capita. Eurgh.

Yes, Capita is the scary part.

I'm pretty soft about data and my government, but even I think Capita stink.

unaware!

Sixty quid aware as of yesterday evening.

120 quid if I did not pony up right away. 180 if they have to write again to remind me.

Trust me, we are very very aware of the number plate recognition cameras.

Also in US, if you have a latest GPS and have settings setup to avoid Traffic and "the Shortest Time" option, you usually get longer routes avoiding traffic congestion.

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