The Non-traffic Jam …. hmmm
For a long time now, my husband and I have joked about the chaotic nature of the non-traffic jam. You know the ones where you crawl along on the interstate or highway for mile after mile and then, at last, get to the head of the jam and there’s nothing there. So you just sail on at the posted speed wondering what just happened. We’ve said it’s chaos in action or a curious statistical anomaly.
Well, now mathematicians have solved the problem from this article:
Mathematicians from the University of Exeter have solved the mystery of traffic jams by developing a model to show how major delays occur on our roads, with no apparent cause. Many traffic jams leave drivers baffled as they finally reach the end of a tail-back to find no visible cause for their delay.
It seems Paul and I weren’t that far off. The mathematicians developed a model that shows that when one event happens — say a truck unexpectedly changing lanes — the cars nearest slow down, the cars behind slow down even more, and this begins a backward wave that slows all traffic, causing the jam that can stretch for miles but having no apparent cause when any car reaches the beginning of the slow down.
Granted we don’t have mathematical degrees but since I’ve independently come up with this explanation for the phenomena — I’m really glad to hear that they’ve come up with a model for this behavior. I always find it interesting that seemingly random and unexplainable behavior has not only an explanation, but a equation or group of equations that can cause the same behavior in controlled conditions. This is the first step in understanding and hopefully coming up with ideas for handling this phenomena.
Of course, we’ve learned to handle the slow downs and increased time on the road by listening to books on tape. It’s the best way to travel in a car. It keeps the mind occupied, gives us a chance to read a book we might otherwise not get to, and you can turn it off and talk about the section you just heard or discuss a tangential topic the book raised. So far we’ve listened to The Life of Pi and the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (read by the author). It’s made the hours on the road (each trip was 8 hours one way) much more enjoyable as quality together time.