MIT's research report that traffic jams are dramatically improved if we stop "driving" the car

bySTANLEY NGUMA

If the automatic driving car spreadsCongestion is canceledOn the other hand, depending on "how fast can you accelerate"Traffic congestion dramatically worsensSimulation results saying that there are times are also given out. Meanwhile, the research result was announced that "traffic situation dramatically improves if you attach a sensor to the rear of the car and control the distance between the vehicle ahead and the vehicle behind it".

Wave Equation of Suppressed Traffic Flow Instances
(PDF file)http://people.csail.mit.edu/bkph/papers/Bilateral_Control

If We All Stopped Tailgating, We Could Dramatically Cut Traffic Jams
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lauriewinkless/2017/12/15/if-we-all-stopped-tailgating-we-could-dramatically-cut-traffic-jams

MIT's research showed the approach using "bilateral control" in which each car adjusts the speed based on the distance to the preceding and succeeding cars. "Calculating the speed from the distance from the preceding car" is what we have done so far, but the new approach not only adjusts the distance to the car behind but also the distance between the cars behind.

In the method shown in this research, vehicle speed control is performed corresponding to the trend of the preceding vehicleAdaptive cruise control(ACC)That which used the existing method of saying. Recent cars are equipped with sensors on the bumper in front of the body, minimizing the distance between cars and the time difference in a form that follows the front person. Therefore, when the car ahead changes the speed, the car carrying the ACC will follow and change the speed. Although this function is useful for securing the safety of the car, it is also not to improve traffic flow but rather to deteriorate it.

The GIF animation (about 1.4 MB) to which the following image was clicked shows the flow of the car using the bilateral control in the upper row and the lower row shows the flow of the car carrying the existing automobile follow-up model. When using existing models, red cars accelerate in order to keep the distance between cars as the preceding car accelerates, but it is still confusing the flow of cars that follow, creating a traffic jam on roads with heavy traffic. On the other hand, if bilateral control that controls both the front and rear inter-vehicle distances is used, large congestion will not occur even if the speed is changed.


Professor Bertholhorn of MIT who conducted the research said, "Because humans tend to recognize the world from" what is in front of us ", the idea of ​​looking behind may be contrary to intuition Also showed that by using bilateral control we can dramatically alleviate traffic congestion without building a new infrastructure.

According to researchers, even if bilateral control is applied just before the traffic jam occurs, the car flow can be smoothly corrected immediately. It is also shown to demonstrate its effect even in lane change and lane joining places. And it seems that the acceleration to keep the distance between vehicles is such that people in the car do not feel uncomfortable.

byLeio McLaren

However, in order to carry out this method, it is necessary to attach a sensor to the rear of the car, so in order to alleviate the traffic situation it is necessary to call on the car manufacturer to install a sensor or update the ACC software. Study data shows that even a small number of cars incorporate bilateral control is expected to improve traffic flow.