Taking a detour improves traffic for everyone

摘要

Take the long way home. It seems that commutes to and from city centres would be better if a few drivers took the scenic route. Most drivers in urban areas try to find the fastest possible route to their destination. But when everyone does this, congestion increases and everyone suffers. If a handful of people took longer routes, they could cut overall congestion by 30 per cent says Serdar Colak of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. "When a road is crowded, an additional car makes a very big difference," he says. "If we are able to remove a couple of cars from the morning commute, that's going to save everyone else a lot of time."