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Mathematicians Solve the Mystery of Traffic Jams

Posted by Zonk on from the next-they'll-use-geometry-on-the-mystery-of-the-haunted-amusement-park dept.

mlimber writes "Do you ever find yourself in a traffic jam, thinking, 'Man, there must be a bad accident up ahead,' but as you plod along you see no evidence of any crash? Some mathematicians have solved the mystery by developing a mathematical model that shows how one driver hitting the brakes a little too hard can cascade into a backup miles behind. The mathematicians' future research will investigate how automatic braking systems may alleviate the problem."

3 of 629 comments (clear)

  1. Old news by Hatta · · Score: 5, Informative

    This has been known for years.

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    1. Re:Old news by orclevegam · · Score: 5, Informative

      It is kind of like the Slinky effect, where you send a pulse down it and it rebounds. Car stops ahead and the cars behind begin breaking, and this begins a chain reaction... I'd love to catch this in the act at night and film the tail-lights lighting up in sequence. The term you're looking for is standing wave. The problem isn't actually the breaking, it's everyone not giving enough room between themselves and the person ahead of them to absorb small slowdowns. The time between when you slow down and accelerate back up to speed needs to be factored in. If the people coming into the jam are entering faster than people can accelerate out of the jam, it will either remain static or become worse.
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  2. Re:Cover Job by jargon82 · · Score: 5, Informative

    They are also behind LAST years mathematicians. Although by a bit shy of a year. http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/27/0350218