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It is no surprise that driver lane changes in traffic affects the flow of traffic itself. When the density of vehicles is low, it can lead to efficiencies in traffic flow. However, when the density reaches a certain level, it has the opposite effect. In this situation, when a driver moves into another lane, the vehicle behind the lane-changing vehicle suffers a delay, which leads to a delay imposed upon the vehicle behind it, etc., that compounds itself as a delay that ripples through the traffic behind. There are several traffic flow models that simulate this, but they can be contradictory in their results. A group of researchers from the Department of Traffic Management School at the People's Public Security University of China obtained quantitative data on this effect by flying DJI Phantom 4 drones over a target vehicle driving in congested traffic. They found that a single lane change (LC) adds between 3.9–9.5 seconds of delay to the cars in the trarget lane.
A key dependency observed, which would not surprise too many people who are accustomed to driving in congested traffic, was the space between vehicles. They found that 5.5 meters was a break point between behavior for the trailing vehicle in the next lane. It was found that when the distance between vehicles is less than 5.5 m, the vehicle following the target vehicle tends to drive at a constant speed or decelerate, but when the distance between vehicles is greater than 5.5 m, the vehicle following the target vehicle tends to first accelerate to prevent the target vehicle from entering the lane (Ed note: I've always thought of this as "Philadelphia driving etiquette"), but then the speed gradually decreases when the target vehicle is forcibly inserted.
This research provides a theoretical reference for the analysis of LC of driverless vehicles. To successfully complete a lane change, a driverless vehicle must comprehensively consider the running state of the vehicle following it, not only to improve its own running speed, but also to reduce the impact on the vehicle behind it.
Journal Reference:
Yang, Q., Lu, F., Ma, J. et al. Analyzing the delays of target lane vehicles caused by vehicle lane-changing operation. Sci Rep 11, 22047 (2021).
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-00262-1
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday November 14 2021, @05:04PM
So much springs from this... why would you go out when you know the roads are already jammed? Is it because your boss is making you show up at a specific moment in time, they won't let you come to work later - or earlier? Is it because you "have to" drop your kids off at school in a specific time window, and they can't take the universally available bus, or walk? It can't be because the grocery store is about to close, grocery stores are almost universally ghost towns in the hours just after they open or just before they close. To me, the real answer as to why people hop in their cars and jam the roads worse than it already is during rush hour is: because F everyone else, I want to go NOW and I'm going to go NOW and we're all just going to deal with it.
S&M probably has a lot to do with it, too. Sadists who like being out in the world when they can tailgate and close people off from getting in front of them. Masochists who love being helplessly stuck in a ridiculous line of traffic, sometimes for hours; there's probably a more refined kink description for this, maybe along the Dominant / Submissive genre...
Disney's Mr. Wheeler / Mr. Walker cartoon covered this, in the 1960s I think, maybe earlier. See above about social freedom to express repressed kinks in public...
My ex-father in law was a truck driver, nice guy, much nicer than his daughter, but I digress... Any route that took him through Atlanta, he would time so as to arrive outside the city in the late afternoon. Have dinner, shower, try to get to sleep by 6pm so he could get up around 2am and be driving through Atlanta in the 3am-4am window. Same guy relocated his family to Louisiana, not only for the cheap housing, but also to be centrally located for the bulk of his travels.
Miami, at least, had regulations about hours during which farm equipment was allowed on public roads - I think they had to be back in the fields by 7am, not sure when their window opened, but I'd run up behind them on my way in to my 8am job downtown sometimes.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end