Giz Explains: Traffic

Americans talk about dealings like the English lecture about the weather . It ’s a constant upset , a never - stop obsession . We ’ve discover the stats : The commuter lose 36 hours a year stuck on the route , over $ 800 dollar mark in the same amount of time , and , well , an immeasurable amount of saneness . There ’s a slew of talk about what has to happen to make it well , but not a lot of word about what causes the problem in the first space . So why is there so much damn traffic ?

Part of it is overcrowded roads , for sure . Rush hour ( or , rather , rush hours — there are six of them in a fall in daylight ) pass off because of the whole nine - to - five business . When so many people are expected to come and go at the same prison term , it creates a high lunar time period of vehicles that flood our roads . But even though get up motorways account for the bulk of our frustration , they do n’t explain random Sunday afternoon slowdowns or repeated red lights .

Surface street jams , if not get by an effect , a expression outlet , or an accident , can often be blamed on technology . When you feel like you just ca n’t block hitting . every . red . Light Within , the machines presiding over the signal are likely miscalibrated .

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Traffic Inner Light typically puzzle out in one of two mode . “ Fixed - time ” signals are set on a day-to-day crimson light green light docket , and “ traffic responsive ” signaling make determination based on the flow of cars in material time . Both systems screw up .

Fixed time signaling do work the same direction as those clear timers you use to confuse the criminalz when you leave Ithiel Town : Electrically repel dials tell the lights to ferment on and off at specific times on specific days . The dial can be program to accommodate the morning flush at a nearby schooling , the evening commute , or a novel shopping essence . The problem is that these kinds of timers can easy descend out of sync with the actual time of day at the whimsey of weather , electric infrastructure problems , or just plain quondam mechanical imperfectness . So while the dial may think it ’s regulating traffic at one clip , real driver are encountering awkward lag at another . “ There could be very different patterns at 5 pm than at 4 pm , ” says Texas Transportation Institute Research Engineer Timothy Lomax . If a telephone dial is off by an hour : boom , dealings .

So the “ traffic responsive ” signals should be better , right ? Well , they come with their own set of difficulties , since they swear on real - prison term monitoring systems to usher cars through intersections — normally wires in the paving that count cars teamed up with a video camera that monitors a wider area . The tv camera always needs to be pointed in the correct direction , but unfortunately , in high spirits winds can spin the cameras around , aim them at the recession flatulence station or the chick overhead . When this happens , you , the machine driver , are no longer part of the equation . Oh — and you ’re decease to miss your appointment .

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The second prominent traffic problem is lane closure . These are your fracture — or , more specifically , your clang , stalls , and equipment failure . They exclude off valuable space in an already overcrowded arrangement , pee-pee it tough for everyone to move onward . A study out of Marin County render that blocking a freeway lane for just 15 minutes during the start of peak traffic causes more than three land mile of accompaniment , which then takes three hours to crystallise . [ PDF ]

The more frustrative problem , though , is that a large chunk of crash - related dealings is uncalled-for . When just a few driver slow because , Holy shit ! There ’s a crash on the other side of the wide median that absolutely does n’t affect me but that I ca n’t barricade watching ! it can create a durable and pregnant thruway - wide decrease in speed .

To understand why this happens , a little story : seat belt , airbags , and crash - absorbent human body have made drivers more at relief with their base hit on the road , which means that on the pike , we ’re force nearer to each other . Today we cram 2300 cars in each lane per hour , up from 1800 back in the day when crashes stand for certain death .

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Today , we can see taillight several machine ahead through rearward and front windshields , so we tailgate . But there ’s a taking into custody . When one car slows down to gawk at the overturned motorcar across the manner , it very apace sends a undulation of brake lights rearward and sideways . This also happens , to a sure extent , when someone brake for no reason , but in the case of an accident , it causes a range reaction that propagates the slowing and the rubbernecking . By the time the car at the close of the mess pop travel again , the crash site ’s been cleared . “ For that amount of dealings wait , ” says Lomax , “ you could credibly make an economic argument that average vegetation to blockade the other side would make up for itself . ”

How about hovercars ? How long would they take to bear for themselves ?

Original artwork by Christopher Hartelius . For more of Chris ’s body of work and other true news stories , please contain out his websiteTrue American Dog .

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