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A Traffic Jam For No Reason At All

Andrew Price
By Andrew PriceJun 20, 2008
Andrew Price
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Researchers from the Japanese "Mathematical Society of traffic flow" have shown how a traffic jam can develop for no apparent reason. They had 22 drivers circle a track and asked them all to keep a constant speed of 30 kph. Small fluctuations in people's speeds caused little disruptions that snowballed into full-fledged jams. The traffic jams propagate around the track like a wave through a spring.We wonder how many day-to-day traffic slowdowns are due to this phenomenon, as opposed to a real capacity problem on streets.

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