Talk:Traffic wave

Downstream waves and solitons
I tried to find sources for the downstream waves, or the “pinned” waves, and solitons. Not quite sure if these really can exist in the way that the entry is written. Solitons are travelling solutions, but not necessarily stationary as in fixed to a spot on the road. The key issue here seems to me that the text currently is ambiguous when it refers to a wave “relative to the motion of the cars themselves”. What does that mean? Relative to speed of the cars, or relative to the direction of the cars? If speed is what is meant, then the wave cannot travel faster, that is considered unphsysical in the traffic flow literature.

I think the author probably intended to say that the wave can go in the same direction of the cars, and by the same token, occasionally be “pinned”. The word “pinned” is an unfortunate choice of words as the text seems to refer to a wave that travels backward (relative the moving traffic) with the same speed as the traffic is moving forward. But that is a coincidence, the wave is not really stuck to a spot on the road. If the unfortunate words "motion" and "pinned" are removed, then the text can be fixed. I have done this, hoping that it makes the entry better, and it can be taken of the "original research" list. I am not an expert on this though, is anyone in a position to comment on my suggested change?

There is a lovely picture in Wilson, R. E. (2008). Mechanisms for spatio-temporal pattern formation in highway traffic models. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 366(1872), 2017-2032. (Fig 1). The paper is open access under research http://information.bristol.ac.uk/files/3007542/ptroysoc-v8.pdf but I presume the figure is under copyright. Anyone aware of something similar that can be put in?

Thank you

Pips15 (talk) 21:40, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Green wave
Could someone translate Grüne Welle from german into this article? Antagonist 23:25, 1 March 2007 (UTC)


 * That article relates to the Green wave, so any translation may be most appropriate there. I may tend to it someday, but I've plenty of other things to do first.  Green waves are a type of traffic wave, but specifically applied to traffic signal timing.  -- Bossi  ( talk • gallery • contrib ) 22:06, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

"It has been said that by knowing how traffic waves are created, drivers can sometimes reduce their effects by increasing vehicle headways and reducing the use of brakes, ultimately alleviating traffic congestion for everyone in the area." ... how are drivers supposed to do that? All that happens if a driver increases headway is someone else will cut in front of them to take up that space. 12.206.232.172 (talk) 01:07, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Some of this may not be original, as simple physics is well established: One can also reduce the use of brakes by looking farther ahead and responding quickly but gently. In general, reducing use of brakes reduces the accident rate, as brakes are still available in reserve. Reducing the use of brakes saves energy (gasoline), because the function of the brakes is to convert useful kinetic energy into useless heat energy. Power and brakes are part of the driving force of the waves, so one can expect that their reduced use will reduce the waves.

From a researched article: There are three traffic modes on multi-lane highways. 1. Independent where cars pass each other freely. 2. Cars all moving at nearly the same efficient speed. 3. Jammed, the speed is lower than that at which the road has the most throughput. David R. Ingham (talk) 20:05, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Fixing a link
I tried fixing the link on the "Traffic wave" page but it was removed by a bot and I got a message.

The link to "Trafficwaves.org" goes to a hosting company. I did not think that this fit in with the Wikipedia philosophy. 50.133.5.126 (talk) 03:27, 1 April 2012 (UTC)