Using traffic flow data and models to demonstrate simulation modeling
as a learning tool seems to be akin to the Bunsen burner, i.e. a
fundamental implement everyone uses. The Wall Street Journal
science section reports this:
How Brief Drop in Cars
Can Trigger Tie-Ups,
And Other Traffic Tales
July 1, 2005; Page B1
If you plan to hit the roads like the zillions of other drivers this holiday weekend, Avi Polus has a word of advice: patience.
A transportation engineer at Technion-Israel Institute
of Technology in Haifa, Prof. Polus's concern isn't drivers' collective
blood pressure but traffic flow. Like the growing number of other
engineers and physicists who are hubcap-deep in the science of traffic,
he is determined to explain infuriating mysteries such as phantom
traffic jams (There's no bottleneck or accident at the front of this
jam, so why weren't we moving?) and why a brief drop in volume can,
paradoxically, trigger a long-lasting traffic jam.”
Be sure to download and check out the models from Martin Treiber of Dresden University of Technology.
