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Zen and the Art of Merging
Oct. 16th, 2002 12:26 pmIt's interesting to watch people coping with merging every morning. CityLink practically requires an advanced degree in skilful merging with the essay topics of "Making space where technically none exists", "Playing with trucks - an S&M perspective" or "Indicators - requirement or option?" This morning was particularly bad for some reason - more traffic than usual, both exit lanes clogged over the bridge, lots and lots of trucks - and everywhere you could see the same thought running through people's heads:
"I'm paying $4.65 plus onroad costs to be sitting here dead still in traffic."
At this stage of traffic merging becomes almost ballet-like in its grace, smoothness and occasionally sheer impossibilty. People slide into spaces that weren't there two seconds ago. Entire lanes cross paths without touching. Semis seamlessly manage to cross three lanes without crushing anything[1]. People accelerate or decelerate and the flow moves as if preordained into condensed lines that gradually space out again.
Nobody has stopping distances worth speaking of, but that's OK, cos nobody's stopping[2]. ;-)
It's funny how well I cope with Australian peak hour merging, given how badly I coped with San Francisco merging. Fortunately I wasn't driving in SF, as I probably would have had a nervous breakdown. People there didn't so much merge seamlessly into spaces and put their blinkers on and swerve at you. Or occasionally just swerve without the blinker. I couldn't cope with it at all. I at least expect drivers to accelerate forward and aim for the space ahead or drop back and aim for the space behind. Not just aim for the space I'm in. Mind you I think the complete lack of an emergency lane and metre high concrete "buffers" were contributing to my SF road phobia. That and I'd read "Dangerous Places" the night before and was convinced I was about to die in a traffic accident (most common cause of death for people in the US aged 15-35.) And then there was the left/right thing. Hm.
But back to traffic flow. I read somewhere (New Scientist I think) that traffic behaves similarly to fluids in terms of mathematical modelling. (This was also the same article that explained why 3 buses always come at once, which may be to do with fluid timetabling.) It would certainly explain the merging thing. We're all molecules in our larger flow of traffic. If we took away the molecules the volume would decrease. And we'd all be merging at 100kph instead of 40. :-) If you increase the speed of the flow do the molecules interact more?
And is it bad to be thinking on these things when I should probably concentrate on what the people around me are doing? ;-)
[1] It's amazing how quickly people will get out of the way when a semi puts its blinker on and starts swerving at them.
[2] hehehe... famous last words..
"I'm paying $4.65 plus onroad costs to be sitting here dead still in traffic."
At this stage of traffic merging becomes almost ballet-like in its grace, smoothness and occasionally sheer impossibilty. People slide into spaces that weren't there two seconds ago. Entire lanes cross paths without touching. Semis seamlessly manage to cross three lanes without crushing anything[1]. People accelerate or decelerate and the flow moves as if preordained into condensed lines that gradually space out again.
Nobody has stopping distances worth speaking of, but that's OK, cos nobody's stopping[2]. ;-)
It's funny how well I cope with Australian peak hour merging, given how badly I coped with San Francisco merging. Fortunately I wasn't driving in SF, as I probably would have had a nervous breakdown. People there didn't so much merge seamlessly into spaces and put their blinkers on and swerve at you. Or occasionally just swerve without the blinker. I couldn't cope with it at all. I at least expect drivers to accelerate forward and aim for the space ahead or drop back and aim for the space behind. Not just aim for the space I'm in. Mind you I think the complete lack of an emergency lane and metre high concrete "buffers" were contributing to my SF road phobia. That and I'd read "Dangerous Places" the night before and was convinced I was about to die in a traffic accident (most common cause of death for people in the US aged 15-35.) And then there was the left/right thing. Hm.
But back to traffic flow. I read somewhere (New Scientist I think) that traffic behaves similarly to fluids in terms of mathematical modelling. (This was also the same article that explained why 3 buses always come at once, which may be to do with fluid timetabling.) It would certainly explain the merging thing. We're all molecules in our larger flow of traffic. If we took away the molecules the volume would decrease. And we'd all be merging at 100kph instead of 40. :-) If you increase the speed of the flow do the molecules interact more?
And is it bad to be thinking on these things when I should probably concentrate on what the people around me are doing? ;-)
[1] It's amazing how quickly people will get out of the way when a semi puts its blinker on and starts swerving at them.
[2] hehehe... famous last words..
