However, on a congested road very small changes can have huge effects. IIRC, one study showed that a 1% decrease in the number of vehicles resulted in a 28% decrease in commute time.
EDIT: For all you infra folks out there, imagine not being able to dynamically provision resources, no packet loss and worse, the packets can basically do what they want. That includes things like crashing into each other and stopping any other packets from making it through.
It's also not necessary for you to use that lane if you don't want to -- it doesn't go anywhere special :).
I didn't know that the direction of the Expressway changes, it's pretty cool, but has kind of put me off driving down it.
Am I missing something about what the author is saying about the empirical data?
The stark uniformity of the empirical data up to the congestion threshold compared to the wild variance in heavier traffic is exactly the point of the older article this author is critiquing. Of course congestion happens when you approach capacity. This article is rejecting the original's explanation of that variance, without offering any new explanation.
'WOW! REALLY?'
"Charging for something reduced use by 20%, and overuse-related problems by 95%"
"WOW! Why don't more people do that?"
> At low occupancy (cars per mile), drivers can go as fast as they’d like. As occupancy increases, so does flow rate, even though speed decreases somewhat due to everyone trying to maintain following distance. At a certain point, when occupancy becomes high enough, speed dips low enough to where drivers are unable to maintain their minimum following distance, and — catastrophe! — the flow rate decreases dramatically.