Traffic congestion

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Traffic congestion is a condition on networks that occurs as use increases, and is characterized by slower speeds, longer trip times, and increased queueing. The most common example is the physical use of roads by vehicles. When traffic demand is great enough that the interaction between vehicles slows the speed of the traffic stream, congestion is incurred. As demand approaches the capacity of a road (or of the intersections along the road), extreme traffic congestion sets in. When vehicles are fully stopped for periods of time, this is colloquially known as a traffic jam.

For more information about Traffic congestion, read the full article at Wikipedia.
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News tagged with traffic jams

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Sky Pods

Are Magnetically Levitating 'Sky Pods' the Future of Travel?

Technology / Hi Tech

created Sep 23, 2009 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (26) | comments 47 weblog

(PhysOrg.com) -- As a society, we are increasingly interested in finding new ways of transportation that are cleaner for the environment. New concepts in mass transit seem to be one of the main ways to move ...


Optimized by Evolution, Ants Don't Have Traffic Jams

Optimized by Evolution, Ants Don't Have Traffic Jams

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Mar 30, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (21) | comments 17 feature

(PhysOrg.com) -- As highway traffic increases, you'd probably expect a traffic jam, where vehicles slow down due to the high density. While traffic jams are a common occurrence on our highways, high density ...


Cooperative forces boost collective mobility of cells

Cooperative forces boost collective mobility of cells

Physics / Soft Matter

created May 06, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (5) | comments 0

An article by Dr. Xavier Trepat, senior researcher of the Cellular and respiratory biomechanics group at the University of Barcelona, Spain, contributes for the first time an experimental answer to the question ...


MIT takes aim at ‘phantom’ traffic jams

Other Sciences / Mathematics

created Jun 09, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 4

(PhysOrg.com) -- Countless hours are lost in traffic jams every year. Most frustrating of all are those jams with no apparent cause — no accident, no stalled vehicle, no lanes closed for construction.


Going vertical: Fleeing tsunamis by moving up, not out

Going vertical: Fleeing tsunamis by moving up, not out

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Dec 14, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (4) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- In the minutes after a strong earthquake struck offshore of the Indonesian city of Padang on Sept. 30, fears of a tsunami prompted hundreds of thousands of residents to evacuate the coastal ...


Defectors take the car, cooperators go by bus

Other Sciences / Other

created Feb 03, 2009 | popularity 3.2 / 5 (5) | comments 7

National economies are driven by the automobile, even during an economic downturn. Every day, hundreds of millions of people take their cars to visit remote places, to commute, and to reach the supermarket.


Cars sit in traffic on a highway

Netherlands to levy 'green' road tax by the kilometre

Technology / Hi Tech

created Nov 13, 2009 | popularity 3.2 / 5 (5) | comments 8

The Dutch government said Friday it wants to introduce a "green" road tax by the kilometre from 2012 aimed at cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 10 percent and halving congestion.


Traffic jams follow explosive pattern, says researcher

Traffic jams follow explosive pattern, says researcher (w/Video)

Technology / Computer Sciences

created Jun 05, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (3) | comments 2

(PhysOrg.com) -- Picture this next time you're stuck in traffic: Thousands of wildebeests loping across the Serengeti Plain when suddenly a few spooked animals turn the orderly migration into a sea of locked ...


Of traffic jams, beach sands and the zero-temperature jamming transition

Physics / Condensed Matter

created May 13, 2009 | popularity 3.3 / 5 (3) | comments 0

Researchers in condensed matter physics at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Chicago have created an experimental and computer model to study how jamming, the physical process in which collections of particles ...


Snow slackers can be found around the world

Space & Earth / Environment

created Feb 04, 2009 | popularity 3.5 / 5 (2) | comments 2

The streets were strangely quiet as I walked my daughter to school Tuesday morning. Baby stroller traffic jams are the norm in our south London neighborhood, nicknamed the "Nappy Valley" for its prodigious birthrate. But ...


It took Beijing 48 years for the number of vehicles to increase from 2,300 in 1949 to the first 1 mln in 1997

Beijing vehicles exceed four million: state media

Space & Earth / Environment

created Dec 19, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

The number of registered vehicles in Beijing topped four million this week, state media reported, meaning a quarter of the 16 million permanent residents in China's capital have a car.