Secret to dodging traffic jams? Use the shortest route

THERE are few things more frustrating than getting caught in a traffic jam during the morning commute.

But scientists have now revealed the best way to avoid being stuck in a queue of traffic – even if it goes straight through a city centre.

Sticking to the shortest route, even if you think it will be busy, has been proved to be quicker than trying to find a less-congested alternative.

Mathematicians at the University of Strathclyde number-crunched rush-hour traffic patterns in four world cities, and found that while jams are ‘a daily bind’ for many commuters, drivers may be making them worse by trying to avoid them.

Their analysis showed drivers may think the most direct route will be too congested or have too many junctions or traffic lights to be the quickest, so they often avoid taking the shortest route to their destination in peak-time traffic.

But the truth was often that the shortest routes were generally less congested than the alternatives drivers took – and might even be faster.

Complex systems expert Professor Ernesto Estrada said yesterday: ‘We found that rushhour traffic in major cities across the world follows a strange and counterintuitive pattern.

‘Instead of drivers navigating the city by using the shortest paths to their destination, they travel in a diffusive way.

‘Our study suggests drivers perceive the shortest routes as “too central to be empty” and avoid taking them altogether.’

Professor Estrada, who conducted the Strathclyde study with colleagues from Isfahan University of Technology in Iran, added: ‘Because drivers mainly rely on cognitive maps they have previously created to navigate the city, they end up using the same routes to get to their destination.

‘The result is the creation of what we call “communicability” routes that become more congested than the shortest path, and possibly we will have to wait more due to congestion than to traffic lights, signals and intersections.’

The study, published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, provides insights into how information flows along complex networks and could help city planners tackle congestion.

Professor Estrada said: ‘The study of vehicular traffic flow in cities offers a unique opportunity to test theoretical models about network flows using experimental data. These findings are very important for managing traffic in cities and proposing measures that alleviate congestion at busy times.’

‘Traffic follows a strange pattern’