Traffic
hideTraffic on roads may consist of pedestrians, ridden or herded animals, vehicles, streetcars and other conveyances, either singly or together, while using the public way for purposes of travel. Traffic laws are the laws which govern traffic and regulate vehicles, while rules of the road are both the laws and the informal rules that may have developed over time to facilitate the orderly and timely flow of traffic.
Organized traffic generally has well-established priorities, lanes, right-of-way, and traffic control at intersections.
Traffic is formally organized in many jurisdictions, with marked lanes, junctions, intersections, interchanges, traffic signals, or signs. Traffic is often classified by type: heavy motor vehicle (e.g., car, truck); other vehicle (e.g., moped, bicycle); and pedestrian. Different classes may share speed limits and easement, or may be segregated. Some jurisdictions may have very detailed and complex rules of the road while others rely more on drivers' common sense and willingness to cooperate.
Organization typically produces a better combination of travel safety and efficiency. Events which disrupt the flow and may cause traffic to degenerate into a disorganized mess include: road construction, collisions and debris in the roadway. On particularly busy freeways, a minor disruption may persist in a phenomenon known as traffic waves. A complete breakdown of organization may result in traffic jams and gridlock. Simulations of organized traffic frequently involve queuing theory, stochastic processes and equations of mathematical physics applied to traffic flow.
For more information about Traffic, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
News tagged with traffic
Counterintuitive physics may help everyone drive home quicker
Oct 02, 2008 |
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If you're trying to drive to a destination as quickly as possible, you might think that knowing the traffic conditions would help you choose the quickest route for yourself. Traffic reports and new GPS technologies ...
Intelligent Traffic System Predicts Future Traffic Flow on Multiple Roads
Oct 12, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- In urban areas, there’s almost always more than one way to get somewhere, but often it’s difficult to predict which road will be fastest. In an attempt to improve traffic flow and decrease ...
Scientists reveal effects of quantum 'traffic jam' in high-temperature superconductors
Aug 27, 2008 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, in collaboration with colleagues at Cornell University, Tokyo University, the University of California, Berkeley, ...
Are Magnetically Levitating 'Sky Pods' the Future of Travel?
Sep 23, 2009 |
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(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 ...
Major drop in traffic deaths: It's more than high gas prices
Jul 28, 2008 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Rising fuel prices, resulting in less driving, may very well be a reason for the decline in traffic deaths, as recent reports have suggested. But a new report by the University of Michigan shows that som ...
Hit all green lights with new Audi gadget
Oct 24, 2008 |
3.5 / 5 (26) |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- If you drive down the same roads every day, you probably know the patterns of familiar stop lights - how long they take to turn green, or when the green arrow will appear. For light-conscious ...
The 160-mile download diet: Local file-sharing drastically cuts network load
Technology / Computer Sciences
Aug 19, 2008 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Ever since Bram Cohen invented BitTorrent, Web traffic has never been the same. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, however, is a matter of debate.
Optimized by Evolution, Ants Don't Have Traffic Jams
Mar 30, 2009 |
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(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 ...
UC Berkeley, Nokia turn mobile phones into traffic probes
Nov 06, 2008 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Drivers in the San Francisco Bay Area with GPS-enabled mobile phones can soon tap into new technology that promises to transform traffic monitoring. Moments before midnight on Monday, Nov. 10, researchers ...
Traffic's true toll: Researchers explore the health effects of vehicle exhaust
May 22, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- When Dr. Ralph Delfino and Michael Kleinman look at Southern California's gridlocked freeways, they don't just see traffic. They see research opportunities.
ESA map reveals European shipping routes like never before
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
May 22, 2009 |
4 / 5 (9) |
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A synoptic view of European shipping routes can be seen for the first time thanks to a new map created using seven years of radar data from ESA's Envisat satellite.
Statistical road safety: 18th century math, 21st century road safety
Mar 27, 2009 |
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What possible connection could there be between an eighteenth century British Presbyterian minister and preventing road traffic accidents in Hartford, Connecticut. Everything, according to a report in the International Jo ...
Spies breach Pentagon fighter-jet project: report
Apr 21, 2009 |
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Computer spies have hacked into the Pentagon's most costly weapons program, a US newspaper reported Tuesday, raising the prospect of adversaries gaining access to top-secret security data.
Swedish court overturns landmark file sharing ruling
Oct 13, 2009 |
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A Swedish appeals court on Tuesday overturned a landmark file sharing ruling that forced an Internet service provider to reveal an Internet user's identity to five publishers.
New car tech: Not just crash protection, but prevention
Jan 28, 2009 |
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2
A car that can brake itself to avoid a fender-bender during the morning commute might seem far into the future. Except it goes on sale in March. That's when City Safety, a low-speed collision-avoidance technology becomes ...
