Ok let me try and make this make sense; when driving on the motorway/highway, why does traffic come to a slow or stop at some points and then speed up (with no obstructions/traffic lights etc) and flow freely with no change in the road or conditions?
If it’s clear up ahead, why do cars slow down or stop when nothing is blocking them in the distance? It’s like it slows down for no reason then just regains speed and traffic flows fine. Drives me insane
In: 8
I know the answer has been given but I love [this website](https://traffic-simulation.de/). It lets you really play around and see how traffic can develop over time.
It reminds me of something in the military called the slinky affect during group/formation runs. The group of runners in a formation often find themselves speeding up and sllowing down (feels like a slinky opening and closing). One minute your speeding up to catch up to the people in front of you, next minute your hitting the breaks because suddenly everyone is bunched up again.
There’s a lot of good explanations here, but I haven’t seen the term “Phantom traffic jam”
That’s what I understood the official terminology to be.
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