Ants can create new paths on demand. Ants on a trail typically have the same destination. Ants aren't going to park on the already tiny trail unlike humans. Bumps, potholes slow down cars and limit ability to increase speed unlike ants.
We'll be finally able to traffic jam free when flying cars become the norm.
That's not what the article is saying. They have tested ant flow on narrow bridges where additional lanes aren't possible.
From the article:
"they do this through self-imposed speed regulation. When it's moderately busy, for instance, the authors found the ants actually speed up, accelerating until a maximum flow or capacity is reached.
Whereas, when a trail is overcrowded, the ants restrained themselves and avoided joining until things thinned out. Plus, at high density times like this, the ants were found to change their behaviour and slow down to avoid more time-wasting collisions."
We'll be finally able to traffic jam free when autopilot will make us slow appropriately in high density conditions, avoiding accordion-like brake/accelerate/brake cycles
> We'll be finally able to traffic jam free when autopilot will make us slow appropriately in high density conditions, avoiding accordion-like brake/accelerate/brake cycles
No, because each vehicle has different acceleration and deceleration rates. Watch any road with an incline and you will see congestion develop relatively quickly before the incline.
And a traffic jam is inevitable when the bandwidth of a road has been exceeded. Each vehicle needs a certain amount of space in front of it, and behind it. The faster it goes, the more space it is, as well as if it’s heavy. This means for a given number of lanes, at a given speed, there exists a max number of vehicles. Once this maximum is exceeded, speed must drop as it is no longer safe to travel so close to vehicles in front and behind, and so bandwidth also drops. Hence, traffic jam. The different accel/decel rates contribute to the congestion also, as vehicles need varying amounts of time to fill the space in front of them.
Bottom line, there is no solution to traffic jams other than reducing space needed to travel
Per person (trains instead of cars), or increasing speeds (not possible in cars on current roads without exceeding acceptable safety risks), increasing the number of lanes (space is usually not available), and the easiest option, reduce the number of vehicles traveling the road via variable tolling based on congestion (currently the best option in my opinion).
Humans don’t closely approach the theoretical limits of highway capacity. They encounter a much lower limit and get stuck in a range of suboptimal choices.
I can see it helping a little in cases where congestion is caused by some less than ideal braking, but in urban areas where the congestion is frequently due to merges or in a hilly area where trucks are going slower in one or two lanes, I don’t see it helping much. In rush hour, the cars are bumper to bumper, it’s because of all the cars entering the same roadway needing to merge in.
Also, I would assume any congestion alleviated would be offset by induced demand by the people who now see less congestion and decide its worth it to jump on the road.
>I would assume any congestion alleviated would be offset by induced demand by the people who now see less congestion and decide its worth it to jump on the road.
Proportional to the number of people forgoing trips because the congestion sucks. You'll never eliminate all congestion at peak hours but you can make "peak hours" into "peak hour" if you make things more efficient. A more efficient system can also withstand more traffic before things start backing up into each other and it all goes to hell with feedback loops.
Scenarios where individuals are planning their own movement (road traffic, foot traffic in a stadium, etc) can generally be modeled like a plumbing system carrying a highly viscous and compressible material. If you throw every trick in the book at it to make all the "features" (intersections, doorways) efficient you can reap a lot of benefits without actually widening bottlenecks.
The principle is sound, but the ants actually obey the rules whereas (in the UK at least) a small contingent of human drivers will ignore the limits, speeding up and slowing down between enforcement cameras. This concertina effect from just a small number of drivers is enough to slow the entire flow of traffic.
It would have happened anyway after a certain density of vehicles is exceeded, since each car and truck had different accel/decel rates. Especially if there is an incline anywhere.
yes, speed reduction on the Paris belt was also done in order to reduce traffic jams. The argument was "peak speed is slower, but apart from night/holidays situation with empty road, you'll actually get faster to where you're going because of less jams"
> Ants on a trail typically have the same destination.
In particular, they are working as a team. No single ant has any incentive to move faster than their teammates: the nest will be filled at the same speed, whether she gets there first or others do.
Flying cars will never become the norm unless we work out how to produce infinite clean energy or how to turn off gravity. Traffic jams will be gone when city planners work out cars were not a good idea for transporting mass amounts of people.
As far as flying car charging stations go - we could use large microwave emitters (narrow beam):
"A microwave-powered aircraft has lifting surfaces for exerting lifting forces on the aircraft in response to the propulsion of the aircraft and a rectenna array for receiving and rectifying microwave energy transmitted to the aircraft from a location remote from the aircraft. An electric motor for driving a propeller is energized by microwave energy received by the rectenna array, which is provided in a body at the underside of the aircraft. The body has its major dimensions extending horizontally and is relatively shallow with a periphery which is vertically curved so as to reduce turbulence in the airstream over the body during flight. The body is separate from the lifting surfaces and shaped to at least substantially avoid the generation of lifting forces by the body."
How much energy can a microwave emitter send across how far? If we're talking tens of kilowatts at a distance of 5-10 miles - emitter "turrets" would be situated on towers along a path between cities. Depending on the energy storage method aboard the passenger-ferrying aircraft - the tower would be sending a charge for the duration of a straight flight path travel time of several miles. If the craft has the energy storage for an average 50 miles of travel (70 miles after adding a safety buffer), then every 30 miles the craft would receive a charge behind a shield to protect passengers from intense microwave radiation focused on its rectenna.
If the towers have a range of 5 miles, then that is 10 miles of charging since the craft flies towards, over, and away from the tower. Duration of a charge could increase if the craft has the altitude to glide and thus slow and stop running engines. Microwave induced amperage can increase as the craft gets closer to the source. Since this is for inter-city travel, the towers would be located on empty land where dozens of hectacres of solar panels could provide a local dedicated grid. Night flight may not be feasible unless there is a local dense energy source. We have to consider passenger air travel (likely automated) as traditional traffic, along a straight line, like Coruscant. Multiple towers and emitters at these charging points for high density intersections or for two way "highways".
This could only work if these microwave emitters can send out high energy in a very narrow beam with the turret focusing precisely on the craft. It will kill any living thing in that path. Bird populations. Insect migrations. Unshielded passengers.
This type of "fueling station" means less weight required for the flying car's energy storage method. Traffic path charging happens intermittently at flight speeds instead of idled.
... probably just best to use a dense energy source and "fill up while parked" the traditional way before each trip?
We'll be finally able to traffic jam free when flying cars become the norm.