How to Help Prevent Traffic Jams

We’ve all experienced it: the dreaded traffic jam. Sometimes these frustrating backups are caused by accidents or construction, however, there is another breed of traffic jam that is born out of the simple act of bad driving.

Last year, an MIT professor presented an algorithm that could be used in smart cars to alleviate traffic flow problems. Berthold Horn, professor in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, came up with the idea after suffering through the heavy traffic on Massachusetts’ Interstate 93. He explained that backups occurred as a result of variations in speed, which were magnified as they passed through a lane of traffic. One driver would slam on their brakes, causing the driver behind them to do the same, and so on, until cars at the end of the line became backed up, as we often see on highways and interstates. If you’re having trouble wrapping your head around this visual, check out the simulator posted on the MIT website.

The proposed solution was an innovative cruise control system that measured the distance and velocity of vehicles behind and in front of the car, adapting the speed to stay roughly halfway between the two. This way, the car wouldn’t have to slow down as drastically if the vehicle in front braked, and the car would also be less likely to pass on the dramatic change in speed to the car behind it.

However, we don’t necessarily need technology to overcome this traffic flow problem. We simply need to learn how to drive correctly, and foster a culture that encourages smart drivers. If every driver kept their vehicle a reasonable distance behind the person in front of them (1 – 5 car lengths depending on the speed), then we could effectively achieve an ideal state of traffic flow.

Of course, we don’t live in a perfect world with perfect drivers. Most drivers have a “me first” mindset, many are driving full of road rage, and far too many are driving distracted. Then, there are the drivers that fly across three lanes of traffic with no blinker, the drivers that tailgate and brake-check, and the drivers that like to switch lanes every two seconds. All of these things cause disturbances in the normal speed of traffic flow, causing people to slam on their brakes, causing the cars behind them to slow down drastically, and so on all the way down the line until the inevitable backup occurs. This is why we all have to sit in traffic in the middle of a 70 mph interstate with no stop lights, no construction and no accidents. This is how traffic jams are born.

So, be a smart driver and encourage everyone you know to do the same. It’s the quickest and simplest solution… at least until computers begin to do it for us.