Chaos and Your Everyday Traffic Jam

An anonymous reader writes "What causes these mysterious traffic jams that continually appear throughout the day for no reason whatsoever? Is it simply the fact that most people just don't have a clue how to drive? That's very possible, and in reality there are so many variables involved in something like a traffic jam. But is it possible that the entire traffic jam could be both the continuing and end result of a chain reaction set in motion by a single driver who was in too much of a hurry?"

Comments

I know, I know!!

[quokkapox]

"What causes these mysterious traffic jams that continually appear throughout the day for no reason whatsoever?

Too many cars?

Roads and CSMA/CD

[rar42]

I'm inclined to compare roads to shared medium Ethernet. As the traffic builds up you get more 'collisions' and both systems have collision detection built-in.

With Ethernet, as the 'traffic' builds to about 40% of the theoretical capacity, collisions become the norm and the re-tries start to overwhealm the system and it locks. With roadways, as the traffic builds to a certain limit, then awareness of potential collisions magnifies in the drivers, so reactions to situations increases and the road stalls. This is why variable speed limits work, because the road and drivers can cope with more vehicles if there is a lower maximum speed.