WEBVTT - What Makes Traffic So Bad? 0:00:01.520 --> 0:00:05.080 Hey, Welcome to Sign Stuff, the production of iHeartRadio More. Hey, 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:08.799 cham and today we're answering the question what really makes 0:00:08.840 --> 0:00:14.800 traffic so bad? It turns out it's not careless drivers 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:19.880 or accidents or roadwork. It's something much more surprising. We're 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:22.880 going to talk to two experts on traffic engineering. We're 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:25.760 going to step us through the history of traffic, the 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:28.400 real causes of it, and what we can do to 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:32.479 make commuting easier. To hit the accelerator because we are 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:36.200 clearing the road to answer the question what really makes 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:48.440 traffic that enjoy? Hey everyone? So, like most people, I 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:51.560 hate traffic. I always feel like I'm wasting my life 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:54.320 away sitting in my car, hitching my way across the 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:57.560 highway or a busy road. And the worst part is 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:02.200 that sometimes there's no clear reason for it. You've probably 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:04.639 had the experience of sitting in traffic for a while 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:07.160 and then all of a sudden, the traffic clears up, 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:12.199 and you think was it all for nothing? What's going on? Well, 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:14.800 to find out why that happens and to answer all 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:18.080 my traffic related questions, I reached out to two traffic 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:22.400 engineering experts. The first one is doctor Maria Lauda de 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:26.160 la Monice, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:29.280 the University of California at Berkeley who works at the 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:35.120 no pun intended intersection between traffic science and math. She's 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:37.720 going to tell us why these random traffic jams happen, 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:40.319 but first I wanted to know a little bit about 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:43.919 the history of traffic. So here's my conversation with doctor 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:49.600 Maria Lauda de la Monique. Well, thank you, doctor de 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:50.880 le Monique for joining us. 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:52.560 Thank you, it's a pleasure to a here. 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:55.400 Well, I kind of have to apologize for being laid. 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:57.200 I was stuck in traffic. 0:01:57.360 --> 0:02:00.440 That seems to be a problem for everybody these days, 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:03.160 especially in the Bay Area where we are. 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:06.160 Actually, I'm just kidding. I work from home, so I 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:08.840 haven't had to deal with traffic in a long time. 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:11.880 I bike to avoid the traffic. I have an electric bike. 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:12.840 That's my commute. 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:16.400 Oh that's smart. Wow, at least for now, until everybody 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:19.440 gets an electric bike, Yes, then there might be bike traffic. 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:23.080 Yeah, there's still is some places in Europe. Alreadia experience 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:26.160 in traffic with bikes in the Netherlands. In Paris, it 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:27.160 was a problem for a bit. 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:29.600 Oh wow, all right, we'll get into that, but I 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:31.919 thought way we could start by asking you to tell 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:34.000 us a little bit of the history of traffic, Like 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:36.520 when did traffic become a problem for humans. 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:40.280 Well, people tend to think that traffic was born, let's say, 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:43.560 with cars, but in reality it's something that all does 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:46.720 humans and cities. So we can go as far back 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:50.400 as ancient Rome and we still have traffic and congestion. 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:54.960 There's Julius sister, even have the regulatory intervention to avoid 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:58.519 that commercial trucks or commercial cars will go on through 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:02.079 the city during daytai because they would cause congestion and 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:05.079 they would make too much noise. So it's a very 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:09.480 whole problem and we're still here trying to solve it. 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:14.320 It's oldest Roman empire, yes, yes, And then a city 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:18.000 started to grow, we also started to experience more and 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:20.200 more traffic and different type of traffic. 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:23.480 Obviously, with the advent of cars is when the problem 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:26.400 became very big because a lot of cars that are 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:29.119 in the road, and also became apparent that the road 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:32.839 cannot be shared anymore between pedestrians and cars, right where 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:36.360 before it was the case everybody was in their pedestrian, bicycle, 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:40.880 animal power vehicles, and then since the cars were there, 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:44.080 and then it became a very chronic problem. And now 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:46.920 it became a problem of everybody going to work in 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:49.440 the morning at the same time and being stuck in traffic. 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:51.960 When we built freeways. 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:54.400 In the fifties, now people didn't live anymore in the city, 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:56.160 but now they had to take the freeway to go 0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:59.200 to the world, and now freeway became congested. And so 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:02.440 it's a problem that we've been dealing for a long time. 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:05.280 Who it seems like any time you try to do 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:07.600 something about it, it still manages to come back. 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:10.120 Yes, because it seems the more we make it better, 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:12.520 the more we make people want to use the cars, 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:16.240 and so instead like we build more roads and then 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:19.839 people use more cars instead of like fixing what we 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:20.480 had before. 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:25.160 And so that seems like a very human problem, is 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:27.240 it is, Well, can you take me back a little 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:29.360 bit on the history of I guess, trying to manage 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:31.960 traffic or trying to deal with traffic, Like what did 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:32.560 the Romans do? 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:36.440 So before the cars, what people were trying to do, 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:40.000 it's mostly intervened like on the human behavior. So it's 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:44.000 like forbid the use of cars during daytime, right, and 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:46.960 so you can only go in the city during nighttime 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:51.000 when there was animal power vehicles. So there may be 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:53.400 a road becomes a one way road, or you had 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:56.960 a policeman at an intersection that decides, like you know, 0:04:57.000 --> 0:05:00.159 now it's animal power flow that goes through the intersection, 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:01.480 then it's pedestrian. 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:02.920 Then as whatever else. 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:07.599 As technology has gotten better and better, we're also getting 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:10.960 better and better and managing traffic. So as car came on, 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:15.040 also traffic light came on because now we were suddenly 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:18.359 able to measure traffic. And the way to measure traffic 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:20.680 at the beginning of the nineteen hundred was a man 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:23.279 standing on the side of the road and literally counting 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:24.480 car as time. 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:27.960 Passed, right, And so graduate student, I imagine. 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:30.560 At the time it was actually scientists, like there's this 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:33.520 famous picture of Bruce Greenshield as one of the fathers 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:36.000 of traffic flow theory, that's standing on the side of 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:38.680 the road with a camera and counting cars in the 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:42.039 nineteen thirties or something. And so the idea it became 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:45.320 managed traffic. The same way as we can measure traffic, 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:48.839 we place traffic lights and traffic lights allow us to 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:52.360 have a certain amount of cars per hours. And if 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:55.680 they are in the cities, you have traffic light and intersection. 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:57.400 If we are in freeway, then you're going to have 0:05:57.440 --> 0:05:59.839 a traffic light at the entrance of an intersection. 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:03.080 And it becomes what is known as from metering. 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:06.560 As we've gotten better and getting data and we have 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:09.839 more information. So now we have, for example, data on 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:14.279 sensors on roadsides, or for example, we have vehicles that 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:17.719 give us information about the GPS or the phone. Then 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:21.200 we've gotten also better and managing traffic, and so now 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:24.919 you have city wide traffic lights plans, or you had 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:27.680 for example, what is variable to p limit, which I'm 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:31.040 sure everybody at some point you saw this message panel 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:34.560 on the freeway that says slow down and go at forty. 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:34.920 Miles an hour. 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:38.880 And so how we manage traffic has evolved throughout the year, 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:41.599 and it's going to evolve as we have different types 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:44.359 of measurements and different ways of estimating traffic. 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:47.880 It seems like the traffic light was a big innovation. 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:50.479 Do we know anything about the history of the traffic light? 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:54.400 So the first traffic light that I know of dates 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:56.719 back to the beginning of the nineteen hundred and I 0:06:56.720 --> 0:07:00.400 think it's in Cleveland. At the beginning was exactly that, 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:04.239 like a single traffic light that would just manage traffic 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:08.120 at a single intersection. And then as things have evolved 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:11.720 nowadays we're able also to have traffic lights that are 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:14.280 synchronized and have the so called the green waves in 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:17.400 which you hit green at first traffic lights and then 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:20.440 you're able to go through all the intersections with that 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:21.880 green light and all of that. 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:26.360 I see. So that's a little bit of the history 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:30.080 of traffic science and engineering. But here's the big question, 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:34.080 why is this problem so hard to fix? Can we 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:37.480 just build wider roads? Well, it turns out there is 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:41.400 an answer to that question, and it's something that totally shocked. 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:44.160 I learned it while talking to the next expert on 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:48.720 our show today, Callin Mees. Well, thank you so much 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:49.960 for joining us, Miss mess. 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:52.400 Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:53.680 Can you please tell U who you are and what 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:54.000 you do. 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:57.240 Sure. My name is Colin Mess and I am a 0:07:57.240 --> 0:08:01.040 PhD candidate at the University of Delaware in the Civil, 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:05.920 Environmental and Construction Engineering Department. My research focuses on traffic 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:10.200 congestion and applying new methods such as artificial intelligence to 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:14.440 enhance traffic management and response to incidents. 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:17.720 Very cool, bite the start us off. He tell us 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:20.320 why is traffic so bad? Sometimes? 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:25.200 Sure, traffic congestion is bad generally as a cause of, 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:28.200 you know, at the highest level, a mismatch between supply 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:32.080 and demand. So we can't build our way out of congestion, 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:34.360 so to speak, as a phrase, you hear a lot 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:37.800 in traffic engineering, and we try to design the roads 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:41.439 in a way that we can accommodate a large part 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:45.240 of the demand we would see even during rush hour periods. 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:48.360 But we can't design the road for you know, the 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:52.240 busiest day of the year economically or feasibly. And so 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:55.680 depending on things you know that are going on, whether 0:08:55.720 --> 0:08:59.160 there's a special event or an incident, or the weather 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:02.280 is really nice and people are traveling due to the season, 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:06.360 we will always inevitably have some congestion as a result 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:08.760 of the fact that we just can't build an infinitely 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:09.520 sized road. 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:13.280 Oh that's interesting. I hadn't heard of that idea before. 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:16.559 So what do you mean by economically we can't build 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:17.600 the roads beginnough. 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:20.680 On the one hand, I think the biggest concern regarding 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:22.880 that would be space, in that we we want to 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:26.360 build roads, hopefully in a way that has a minimal 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:31.840 impact on everyday life and people, that minimizes the environmental impact. 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:33.920 And so it would be nice if we had you know, 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:37.560 infinite space and could build floating roads that would really 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:40.920 minimize the impact on the local environment in the region. 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:43.200 But until we can do that, sadly, we have to 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:47.040 make a compromise in some respect to how much capacity 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:49.320 we can build into the road given the you know, 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:52.600 constraint from the land perspective and the environmental perspective. 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:55.880 Uh. It's like, even if we know that in a 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:59.400 certain road or a certain section of a city or 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:02.600 a town there's going to be two hundred cars going 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:06.560 through a peak rush hour, we don't typically design the 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:10.400 road to be able to take two hundred cars an hour. Yes, exactly. 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:13.440 We would try to get as close to that as 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:16.600 we possibly could, and in some cases we can build 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:19.560 to accommodate the expected rush hour congestion. 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:24.520 Interesting, it's like, even if we let's say, had infinite 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:27.760 land to build a twenty lane road a, it may 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:31.320 not make sense to design it so that it can 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:34.640 take peak rush hour traffic because most of the time 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:36.240 is not peak rush hour traffic. 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:40.040 Yes, exactly, And similar to how we build parking lots, 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:43.480 we try to build for the thirtieth busiest day of 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:47.680 the year, so hopefully we're encapsulating the vast majority of 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:50.560 the regular traffic on that road through a model like that. 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:53.600 But unfortunately, if we built for the you know, for 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:56.360 the one percent or busiest day of the year, we 0:10:56.440 --> 0:10:59.600 likely it would not be feasible from some perspective, whether 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:02.719 that's you know, environmental due to the space constraints, or 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:05.240 maybe it's just an economic cost that would be too 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:08.120 high to be supported with the resources we have. 0:11:08.520 --> 0:11:10.720 Oh, the parking lot is a really good analogy. What 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:12.760 do you mean that you might design it for the 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:14.080 thirty if you said. 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:17.560 Yeah, So if we look at the entire year, cross 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:21.520 all seasons and estimate what the demand or usage might 0:11:21.559 --> 0:11:23.280 be of the road or the parking lot, a lot 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:26.320 of times the planners will pick the thirtieth busiest day 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:29.319 of the year as a good benchmark. And that's usually 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:31.760 the reason for that is because the thirtieth busiest day 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:34.720 is if you look at the pattern in traffic graph, 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:37.200 it would be where things start to really level off, 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:40.040 and then you could almost consider the twenty nine other 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:43.840 days as a rare incident or a rare case. For example, 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:46.360 by me, we have a lot of travel down to 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:48.840 the beach for during the summer. A lot of people 0:11:48.960 --> 0:11:51.120 live down at the beach for three or four months 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:53.719 of the year, and that's a great example of a 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:56.600 place where we can't really design the road for just 0:11:56.760 --> 0:12:00.360 those two months because the utilization outside of those few 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:03.720 months it's significantly lower, maybe eighty percent lower, as just 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:06.720 a really rough estimate, so it wouldn't make sense from 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:10.240 an investment perspective, especially if we have to divide a 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:13.559 limited amount of money across many projects throughout the state, 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:14.920 not just in the beach area. 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:18.559 Wow, that's fascinating. He just kind of blew my mind, Colin. 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:22.640 Yeah. You know, a lot of times you'll see, like 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:25.440 I know, I'll travel down a highway and it'll be 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:28.520 congested and I'll just see completely empty open space on 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:30.960 either side while I'm you know, on the road congested, 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:32.480 and I feel like a lot of people see that 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:34.440 and think, well, why didn't they just build the road 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:37.280 with more lanes. Yeah, I wish we could do that 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:39.680 every time. It would definitely save a lot of headache. 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:44.000 But yeah, just the real world challenges always make things 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:45.560 a little more difficult than expected. 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:49.559 It's kind of like an almost effective life. 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:51.199 Yeah, I would agree with that. 0:12:51.280 --> 0:12:56.719 Yeah, Okay, this really blew my mind. What Colin you're 0:12:56.760 --> 0:12:59.560 saying is that the real reason we have traffic jams 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:03.320 is because we want to have them. Yes, the general 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:05.560 cost of traffic is that there are more cars trying 0:13:05.559 --> 0:13:07.640 to get through a road than the road has space for. 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:11.000 But then why don't we just build bigger roads? Well, 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:14.520 the real reason is that we choose not to. It 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:18.359 doesn't make sense economically to build roads for the absolute 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:21.520 worst traffic days of the year, because then most of 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:25.079 the time the roads would be mostly empty. Instead, we 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:28.080 make a compromise. We accept that there are going to 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:31.120 be traffic jams some of the time to minimize the 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:34.920 cost and the burden of building bigger roads. So living 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:38.960 with traffic is a choice. Okay, So that's kind of 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:43.280 the real reason traffic exists. There are sometimes too many cars, 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:46.240 and we choose not to build roads that can take 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:49.200 all those cars. But here's the thing. As annoying as 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:51.720 it is to send in your car in a congested road. 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:55.559 There is something even worse about the problem of traffic, 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:59.320 and it's something that we definitely can't predict, but that 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:03.520 AI could potentially help us solve in the future. So 0:14:03.600 --> 0:14:05.640 when we come back, we'll talk about what that is 0:14:06.120 --> 0:14:10.000 and something called phantom traffic jams. So don't get off 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:26.520 the freeway just yet. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Hey, 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:29.960 we'll come back. We're talking about the real reasons traffic 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:32.520 is bad, and so far we talked about how it's 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:36.040 a basic supply and demand problem. There are sometimes too 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:38.720 many cars and not enough road to fit them all. 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:42.280 But here's a shocker. Roads are usually not designed to 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:46.120 handle peak traffic demand. It would be too expensive and 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:48.960 take up too much space to make roads and highways 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:53.040 big enough to handle the worst case traffic scenarios. So 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:55.680 in a way, traffic jams are sort of built into 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:58.800 our society, and according to the experts we're talking to 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:01.160 you today, part of the is that it's hard to 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:04.680 even know what the worst traffic scenario is going to be. 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:07.960 Here's traffic science researcher Colin Meess. 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:13.560 Another issue there is that the roads take time to build, 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:17.880 and we find that travel demand patterns change very quickly 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:20.600 and suddenly, and so one issue would be that we 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:23.760 might design the road for the geek rush hour at 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:26.240 the time of building, and we'll project out based on 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:29.160 how we see the population changing and try to get 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:32.160 it as close as possible. But some road projects might 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:35.240 take twenty years to build. For example, there's a road 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:38.880 near me called the four seventy six where they basically 0:15:38.960 --> 0:15:41.400 ran into that issue. It took about twenty years to 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:44.320 build this project, and by the time the project was built, 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:47.360 the population had increased to a point where the road 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:52.320 was instantly congested. It's almost overnight, No, it's open to 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:55.880 the public, and there's already a congestion on that road 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:56.640 from day one. 0:15:56.960 --> 0:16:00.240 Oh wow, it was sort of like a it was 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:03.600 obsolete from the get gode that it was opened exactly. 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:05.920 And I'm sure the people working on that project, you know, 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:09.400 projected out thirty years, use the best population models they 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:12.480 could to try to really estimate how many lanes they 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:14.760 could build or how many lanes they should build, and 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:17.840 what the throughput of that road should be. But unfortunately 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:20.720 the models are not always correct, especially when it comes 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:22.560 to modeling human traffic. 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:26.520 Wow, Yeah, sometimes we don't know how much traffic there's 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:28.280 going to be in the future exactly. 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:30.800 So in the case of that road, that road was 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:35.040 built to help specifically commuters coming from a residential area 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:37.200 that was about forty five minutes away from the central 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:40.480 business district where they worked, and because the traffic was 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:43.600 so bad, a lot of people over time changed how 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:45.840 they got to work, whether that was using maybe some 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:48.840 kind of carpooling system, or maybe they were using the 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:52.400 public transit like the metro or trains to get there, 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:55.080 or they move closer to the city and use they 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:57.520 bike or something like that. And then when that new 0:16:57.600 --> 0:17:01.440 road opens up, word spreads that hey, this new route 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:03.320 is great, you can take your car into the city 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:06.440 again with no problem, and very quickly people will then 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:09.959 shift their travel patterns from these alternate modes that they 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:13.200 may have been using. And so when that option becomes available, 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:16.480 you can see a shift in demand that may not 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:19.200 have been able to be predicted just looking at things 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:23.840 like population change and the amount of vehicles being registered 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:24.400 in area. 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:28.120 WHOA, it's super dynamic exactly. 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:30.760 That's a great way to say accounting for human behavior 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:32.359 can be so difficult. 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:34.360 Right, That's kind of the problem is trying to predict 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:36.520 what people are going to do exactly. 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:39.360 I feel like, well, we will always have this challenge 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:40.520 to some extent. 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:46.119 So traffic seems almost like a fact of life. But 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:49.480 here's the thing. Traffic by itself is not considered the 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:52.800 real problem. Most people don't mind a little bit of traffic. 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:56.440 The problem, according to our experts, is something else. 0:17:57.880 --> 0:18:00.480 The interesting thing about congestion to me is that I 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:03.800 feel like everybody expects congestion, right Like, if you're traveling 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:06.720 a route during rush hour, you have an expectation that 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:09.080 you will be sitting in some level of congestion. But 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:13.280 I think what really frustrates people for good reason is uncertainty. 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:15.399 And I think if you asked a lot of people, 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:18.560 would they rather have a trip that they know to 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:21.480 work their commute's always going to be around thirty five minutes, 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:24.560 give or take, or some days it's twenty minutes and 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:27.080 some days it's fifty five. I think they would almost 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:30.119 always rather have the certainty that they can plan around 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:32.240 that I know that I'm going to my route's going 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:34.240 to take thirty five minutes, even if it's a little 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:36.800 longer than it could take. As long as it's consistent. 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:39.560 That's really important for people to be able to, you know, 0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:42.080 plan and go about their lives and plan their travel. 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:47.040 Oh, that's another super fascinating point. The problem with traffic 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:50.760 is not that there is traffic, because people are to 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:53.960 some degree okay with planning around it. It's the uncertainty 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:55.440 that's really frustrating. 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:58.080 Yeah, I would say from the people that I've talked 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:01.359 to and just my lived experience, that's what frustrates the 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:03.760 majority of people, in myself the most. I remember when 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:06.800 I used to commute into the city. On a good day, 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:08.960 it would take thirty five minutes to get to work, 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:10.720 but on a bad day, it could take an hour 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:12.480 and a half. And you know, when you have it, 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:15.760 there's an expectation that I'm arriving at a certain time, 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:18.359 and so when the travel time is that unreliable, it 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:21.520 becomes unfortunate because I basically have to plan for the 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:24.159 worst case scenario, and then I may arrive, you know, 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:27.240 an hour earlier than I needed. And that's you know, 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:30.000 nobody wants to arrive to work an hour earlier if 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:32.920 they don't need to, So I feel like that is 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:35.960 one of the most frustrating pain points of traffic congestion. 0:19:36.240 --> 0:19:39.359 Right right, or the opposite where you know, you plan 0:19:39.520 --> 0:19:42.840 for the average, but then you're late because there's more 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:43.520 traffic than. 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:47.000 Usual exactly and maybe nine at a ten times you 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:49.400 leave with the expectation that it's going to take thirty 0:19:49.400 --> 0:19:51.320 five minutes, and nine out of ten times it does, 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:54.320 but one out of ten times it's three times as long. 0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:56.439 And I mean, you can only explain that to your 0:19:56.480 --> 0:20:00.560 boss so many times before there's no you know, excuse, 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:02.600 and you just have to leave earlier and plan for 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:04.320 the worst case, which is unfortunate. 0:20:05.520 --> 0:20:08.239 Okay, I guess then the question is what causes that 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:10.440 uncertainty in traffic congestion. 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:13.959 So I think traffic incidents are one of the biggest 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:18.640 drivers of cong unexpected congestion. And by a traffic incident, 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:21.119 in my line of work, we call them non recurrent events. 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:24.159 So we would call like rush hour recurring traffic, or 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:27.200 like a seasonal change due to like we talked about 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:29.160 people going down to the beach, that would be something 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:31.840 that you could call recurrent traffic because we expect it, 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:33.840 we can plan for it, and we kind of know 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:36.679 it's happening. But with an incident we would call that 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:40.600 non recurring congestion, and that could be anything from unexpected 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:44.280 inclement weather that reduces visibility and overall would lower the 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:47.480 average speed traveled on the road, which would then effectively 0:20:47.520 --> 0:20:51.600 lower our capacity temporarily. It could also be, of course, 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:54.720