There, the speed of the traffic flow decreases sharply, which coincides with frequent and hard braking, and with a high risk of rear-end crashes. Congestion due to roadworks occurs in only 2-3% of the cases.Ĭongestion crashes mainly occur at the tail end of a traffic jam. In 20, far fewer traffic jams were registered, which is probably due to the COVID-19 social distancing measures. In 2015-2019, congestion on Dutch national roads increased by a factor of 1.3 with the strongest increase in 2019. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.Traffic congestion occurs when traffic demand exceeds road capacity, or when an incident such as a traffic crash, a vehicle breakdown occurs or temporary roadworks take place, all of which temporarily reduce capacity and restrict traffic flow. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. Joe Palca, NPR News.Ĭopyright © 2013 NPR. Of course you can't spend too much time looking in the rear-view mirrors that will cause its own set of problems. PALCA: Horn says he's actually measured a small improvement in his commute as a result. HORN: Once I came up with this idea, I changed my own driving behavior. But Horn says there would be some benefit if lots of people kept track of their spacing using their rear-view mirrors and didn't tailgate. Now to make the scheme really work, Horn says you need cars that can do the forward and backward monitoring on their own and make the necessary adjustments automatically. PALCA: Doing that will smooth out the traffic. HORN: The easiest way to think about it at first is you're trying to maintain a distance halfway between the car ahead and the car behind. It may seem counterintuitive, but according to his calculations, that can prevent these phantom tie-ups. His method involves not only keeping track of the car in front of you but the car behind you, as well. PALCA: But Horn thinks he's onto a way to smooth out that wave and keep traffic flowing. HORN: There may be someone who is forced to actually stop. People who study this talk about chaotic systems and positive feedback, but the practical consequences are that the amount drivers have to slow down increases the further back you are from the original incident. PALCA: Horn says it's like a wave flowing backwards. The car behind them is forced to slam on the brakes and so on back upstream. HORN: A typical case would be someone slams on the brakes just for a short moment. So what is going on? Horn says it just takes one driver to cause the problem. PALCA: That's Berthold Horn, the MIT computer scientist. There's no one speed-trapping, and you're puzzled. You inch along for a while, and then just as suddenly, the traffic starts moving again.īERTHOLD HORN: There's no accident. JOE PALCA, BYLINE: If you've done even a modicum of highway driving, you've probably experienced this: You're moving along at a pretty good clip when all of a sudden traffic slows to a crawl. A computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology thinks he's found a way to eliminate at least one kind of really annoying traffic jam. If you find yourself stuck in holiday traffic this weekend, our next story won't help you much, but it does bring hope for a less stressful future.
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