Traffic Waves, Physics For Bored Commuters
I actually saw what this guy was talking about this morning. A tractor trailer had flipped over on the side of the road. didn't look like anyone was injured and the accident wasn't obstructing traffic. Of course rubbernecking caused a huge backlog of traffic.
Fluid Dynamics to the rescue!
yeah, i thought about this too. I think a good solution is a device that is attached to your front bumper and can accellerate and break. That we, you are “glued” to the bumper of the car in front of you, as long as you don’t override it. Now what happens, is when one car accellerates from a red light, or from a rubbernecking place, all the cars accellerate at the same pace. This maximizes the amount of traffic permitted through an interestion. The cars can disperse later, when the traffic is thinner.
Comment by kdz13 — 9/15/2004 @ 2:31 pm