Saturday, January 5, 2008

Traffic's "backward travelling wave"

Under the title "Exeter mathematician solves traffic jam mystery" the short blurb describes how the math nerds from Exeter school of engineering have modeled traffic problems and discovered the source of all our nightmares here in Atlanta traffic (and elsewhere, presumably). It's just as we suspected - all those "maroons" (as Bugs Bunny likes to say) that pull right in front of someone causing a series of breaking events resulting in what they call a backward traveling wave (of frustration as well as slowdown).

I wish the title of the article suggested that they've solved the actual problem rather than described it. That's no doubt going to be the subject of the physics department as part of the study of large forward-facing particle guns we can mount on our cars.

1 comment:

Kim said...

I'm guilty. And my hubby swears I make things worse for myself by doing that. But I have a need to be in, what I perceive as, the fastest moving lane. And it usually is, until I get into it.