Traffic Has a Perfect Solution. Humans Are the Problem.

The more human drivers that are replaced by software, the less congestion there will be on the roads. It's delays in human reaction times which cause cars to back up on roads and take forever to get through intersections. this video

what is the validation strategy to show where driverless cars can quantifiably improve? One big way in which automated drivers could improve traffic: By not being a jackass. I remember at one point driving down Westheimer, which is four lanes wide and one of the major thoroughfares of Houston, when I had to slow down for someone making a right turn to merge into traffic into a middle lane while their head was buried deep into the passenger side footwell looking through their stuff. Then, there are the people who feel like they have to tailgate you within 6 feet during rush hour traffic on the highway. Also, the people who won't let you in for some personal justice you can't possibly understand. It would only take a smallish fraction of cars implementing the "stay between" algorithm that CGP Grey mentions in his video to significantly improve traffic. this video I've implemented this algorithm manually. (Much easier to do since I have the instant accelerator response of an electric car.) It does seem to improve traffic flow. Also, jackass tailgaters are sometimes confused by this, and decide to pass.

EV cars do not solve congestion Autopilot cars can do a lot for congestion. If every driver implemented the "stay halfway between" algorithm mentioned in CGP Grey's "The Simple Solution to Traffic" video, there would be far less congestion. this video EVs would also enable simpler tunnel construction and better tunnel economics. This is a part of Elon Musk's new proposals.

I am on the same page with everyone here about the problems with car-centered infrastructure, but I think perhaps we haven’t fully internalized the extent to which driverless, electric, shared vehicles will change this equation. It’s an entirely new paradigm - and even more so if cheap tunneling can be achieved. While Musk’s initial ideas about how to reduce the cost may be wrong, at least he’s trying to! His initial ideas about electric cars and rockets weren’t completely right either, because he was not an expert in those areas. He hired the most talented people in those fields and learned and changed over a period of years until he found what worked. It’s a good algorithm, and it helps to be wealthy so that you can survive the failures and dead-ends without running out of money. There are two arguments in the article: that Musk is going about solving the problem in the wrong way, and that he is solving the wrong problem altogether by trying to put cars in tunnels. The author may well be right about the first, but I think he/she is wrong about the second. Let’s think about everything that changes in a fully driverless, electric, shared, and tunnel-augmented vehicle ecosystem. No more greenhouse gas emissions directly from vehicles (and none at all once the grid is fully renewable). No more need to dedicate huge amounts of valuable land in our cities and suburbs to parking (cars can drive themselves to outlying areas to park or, better yet, can be shared). Dramatically highe

People always talk about driving with gaps[1], but I've yet to see a simulator show how detrimental/beneficial these strategies are to individual drivers. It feels like a hawks and doves style ESS (evolutionary stable strategy) problem. It appears to me that the strategy that eliminates the overall negative affect for the group (avoid creating phantom stop signs, by gapping or "always in the middle" strategies) is necessarily unstable. The benefit to any single driver who does not follow that rule becomes increasingly high as more and more others do follow the rule. Even to the point of ignoring a beeping car I should think. I certainly feel the negative effect driving behind someone who creates a gap as more and more cars merge in front of them. In the pathological case the driver who insists on a safe interval between cars will make no progress at all. 1: (CGP Grey) this video

This isn't what they studied, but a simple thought experiment shows a limited use case where traffic absolutely can be helped by speeding things up. Let's imagine a world where self driving cars are required for freeway driving; this allows them to respond in a predictable and timely manor with respect to directives to avoid lanes (and not jump the line) as well as to go at an exact speed. An event (accident, whatever) obstructs One of Five possible lanes for use (including the HOV lane) on a section normally rated at 60 MPH. This reduces the capacity of the road by 1/5th, or alternately, one lane of flow should be re-distributed across 4 lanes (1/4th per lane). Idealized solution: A temporary bypass zone is communicated to the self-driving cars. There is a lead up zone where the speed is expected to ramp up to the new target, followed by a merge zone where the lanes reduce and the flow is re-shaped to balance traffic evenly. The cars would then pass the incident zone in this higher speed lane-compressed flow, before expanding out and then slowing back down to normal speed. Due to the unexpected nature of the incident there has also been a buildup of volume before the incident, so to alleviate that slightly higher flow will be allowed to drain the high pressure area. In the above hypothetical case, for 4 out of 5 lanes nornally at 60MPH, I would prefer to imagine: (1 + 1/4) * 60MPH => 75, but round up another 5 MPH for the bypass flow for a total of 80MPH in the corrected flo

The video that the above animation is from [1] is about how bad (or alternatively, "selfish") driving behaviors where individuals inch up as close to the car in front of them as quickly as possible (only to have to slam on their brakes) actually lead to worse and slower traffic than if everyone just left a buffer of space in front of them and drove at a moderate pace. So it's actually a lot more analogous than you'd think. [1] this video

In addition to increasing the gap, you have to drive steadily, with no braking. This makes you become the most predictable car on the road, people behind you can follow steadily instead of constantly accelerating & braking. This leads to reduced congestion. This CGP video covers some of this this video

if you think about the speeds involved, a single additional car in front of you on the freeway (or even any additional cars) adds pretty miniscule time to the total commute. Let's compare a few situations. In the baseline you're tailing the car in front of you with a focus on not letting anyone cheat and get in front of you, let's say 50 feet away. Your commute is 30 miles, and in this frictionless sphere of traffic you're going 60mph the whole time. You get to work in 30 minutes flat. In the second scenario you're following the 3-second rule[0]. This would put you ~285 feet behind the car in front of you. Let's say over the course of your commute 20 cars move in front of you. If the average car length is 15 feet, and they all are 50 feet away from each other, when all 20 cars are in place you're a net -(20 * 65) feet away from the original car, or 1300 feet total. At 60 mph that adds ~15 seconds to your total commute time. Well worth having an easier time avoiding a potential crash IMO! Also has the benefit of helping prevent traffic to begin with[1] 0: link . 1: this video

It brings me peace to see other people thinking this way. You should be an active participant on the highway, making decisions to maximize flow. Leaving space so people can merge, controlling speed to smooth slowdowns, anticipating traffic patterns, etc. All of the people tailgating are contributing to the congestion. this video