Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!genrad!decvax!harpo!floyd!vax135!ariel!houti!hogpc!houxm!ihnp4!ihnss!warren From: warren@ihnss.UUCP Newsgroups: net.physics,net.auto Subject: physical laws of freeway traffic? Message-ID: <1561@ihnss.UUCP> Date: Mon, 13-Jun-83 09:11:30 EDT Article-I.D.: ihnss.1561 Posted: Mon Jun 13 09:11:30 1983 Date-Received: Tue, 14-Jun-83 19:33:21 EDT Lines: 23 Having spent another wasted hour on the "Tri-state crawlway" over the weekend, I got to wondering why traffic speeds on overcrowded freeways tends to oscilate, stopping and accelerating, rather than maintaining a constant though slower speed. Such oscillations occur even when there is no entering or exitting traffic, as is true of long sections of this particular road. Given the annoyance of stop and go driving in a standard shift car, I would presume that at least some of the people on the road would be trying to damp out the speed variations. Is there some physical law that dictates this behavior, or is it a result of poor driving practices. Given an appropriate set of mathematical formulas describing the behavior of freeway traffic, I wonder if it would be possible to improve the flow of traffic through bottlenecks by minor modifications of the roadway. I have seen a lot of this sort of analysis on traffic lights, but none on clogged freeways. Always looking for elegant solutions to real-world problems ... -- Warren Montgomery ihnss!warren IH x2494