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Math Says You're Driving Wrong and It's Slowing Us All Down (wired.com)
A new study in IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems mathematically suggests that if you and everyone else on the road kept an equal distance between the cars ahead and behind, traffic would move twice as quickly. From a report: Now sure, you're probably not going to convince everyone on the road to do that. Still, the finding could be a simple yet powerful way to optimize semi-autonomous cars long before the fully self-driving car of tomorrow arrives. Traffic is perhaps the world's most infuriating example of what's known as an emergent property. Meaning, lots of individual things forming together to create something more complex. Emergent properties are usually quite astounding. You've probably seen video of starlings forming a murmuration, a great shifting blob of thousands upon thousands of birds. Bats flying en masse out of a cave is another example, swarming sometimes by the millions through a small exit. And scientists are just beginning to understand how they do so.
Common sense says we don't need math to show what is slowing down traffic. Maintaining distance really means matching speed, acceleration, and deceleration. If those happen distance itself becomes less of a key factor. Added distance is just an aid for drivers who aren't good at staying with traffic flow.
If you want traffic improvement,
1) get left lane laggards to drive properly and not slow down faster traffic
2) get everyone to be expeditious when intersection lights turn green
3) teach people not to contribute to traffic compression waves by over decelerating and then under accelerating
The sweet spot is well known - it's around 50-60. That's why insurance companies offer people in that age bracket the lowest rates - they have the fewest accidents.