RE: game theory etc.

[Jim Sokoloff <jim@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(Greg Hermann (GH) wrote:

>> > and I'd love to
>> > see that study.  I'm not sure how having a car in every available
>> > lane going 45mph and blocking all traffic could possibly be more
>> > efficient than having all the slow traffic in the right-most lane.
>>
>> Neither can I.
>

> Believe it or not--if one plots vehicles per hour past a point
> on a road vs. speed--based on an ASSUMPTION that all vehicles are
> maintaining the propounded 'safe' braking distance between one
> another, the maximum traffic capacity occurs at 40 to 45 mph !!!

I call BS on this.

For this analysis, consider measuring the maximum number of Alfas
that pass a given point on a one lane road in a 1 minute period.
(This obviously scales linearly with number of lanes and number
of minutes.)

If you take the safe following interval to be 2 seconds, you will
get 30 vehicles per minute past that point REGARDLESS of what speed
they are travelling. If you take the safe interval to be 3 seconds,
guess what? Fewer cars/min (20), but still constant with speed.

For your assertion to be true, the formula for safe following
interval would have to have a minima at 40-45 mph. I can't imagine
that any reasonable formula for following interval has its minima
there. (I'd like to see the proposal I suppose.)

---Jim

PS: The call of "BS" was meant in the academic sense, not in the
Greg is an untrustworthy liar sense. :)
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