Traffic Jam….no one likes it but some of us are daily involved and confronted in it.

What is traffic jam?

The term traffic jam denotes a highly faltering or stalled traffic flow on a road. As one of the reasons for this, is considered to be an excessive number of vehicles per time unit (or per length). The causes of traffic jams, however, alone are not explainable.

How the emergence of a traffic jam comes about?

Very few drivers know the reasons, responsible for the formation of traffic jams on the highway. One is the number of models and occasions, and not always heavy traffic, for what the annoying stop-and-go, is responsible. There are a lot of theories and opinions, but the most popular reasons, are: construction sites, road narrowings, adverse weather conditions and accidents (additional, the drivers who want to look at the accident!) are beside heavy traffic, as a decisive factor for the emergence of a jam. The most common reason is overload. This may not always be the result of an accident or a construction site. The sheer number of cars on the highway is enough to cause a traffic jam.

Studies have shown that at a speed of 85 km/h, the highest density of vehicles can be realized. Faster or slower driving leads to view of the University of Hanover in a jam, the collective behavior of all Drivers gets mixed up, resulting in according discrepancies. That is theory, because in reality it is hardly practicable that all motorists drive at the same speed. If you wish to prevent the Formation of a traffic jam in daily practice, you should avoid abrupt braking. According to some analysis models, a slight deceleration on the highway can be cause enough for a traffic jam. The result is a chain reaction in which the following car in turn slows down a little more. By steadily-increasing braking maneuvers, traffic comes to a stop on the highway. One reason is that the re-positioning takes considerably more time than braking. A pass to two seconds until a driver starts his vehicle on the jam front again, releases a road length of 5 to 10 meters. Thus, the jam front travels at a speed of about 15 km/h against the driving direction. Watch this explanation video, of the phantom traffic jam:

How can we prevent the emergence of a traffic jam?

Before construction sites and road narrowings, a Driver should be careful to comply with the so-called zipper method, so that traffic can flow. A smooth ""zip"" helps in front of narrows to avoid kilometer problems. From the expiring track you should not be changed as soon as possible, but at the end to the secondary track. Voluntary jam detectors, police patrols, cameras, helicopters, traffic flow sensors, traffic jam warning system roads and traffic junctions should be observed, visually.There are other modern methods, such as Floating Car Data (FCD) / Floating Phone Data (FPD), too. With these methods, vehicles whose passengers carry mobile phones or built-in devices, can use them for measuring the speed of traffic, and to compute travel time. For more details about new systems to avoid traffic jams, please read my next blog post.

Maybe “nice” to know :-) the Guinness World Records lists the longest traffic jam in the world in 1980 between Paris and Lyon (France) at 176 km / 109 mi in length.