Ants direct the traffic
Ants direct the traffic © Martin Müller/Pixelio???aural:Bildende???
Roads are for driving on, not for standing still. Traffic jams are not only one of the most inconvenient things about road traffic, they are also responsible for major economic damage. The Institute of Theoretical Physics at Cologne University is trying to track down the causes of disruptions of th traffic flow.
To this end, the scientists working with Dr. Andreas Schadschneider are not looking at queues of cars caused by road building works, which are easy to explain. Rather, these physicists are interested in the infamous "sudden congestion", which seems to happen for no particular reason at all. In order to discover what happens during congestion, the scientists from Cologne have not chosen car drivers for their tests, but ants.
The first results: ants would make better drivers. There is always heavy traffic on ant trails but there are never any traffic jams. The highlight: the methods the ants use for maintaining the flow of traffic can help us to make better headway, too. With the help of the ants the researchers have analysed the most significant congestion factors: speed, traffic density and distance.
The ants’ doctrine: they communicate with each other and thus keep the same distance, move at the same speed and regulate this speed according to traffic density. People, on the other hand, career along or dawdle, drive too close and, so, often cause waves of braking which eventually bring traffic to a standstill. The first applications from the world of creepy-crawlies: in the Ruhr Valley traffic lights regulate motorway entrances and thus ensure an even flow.
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