Automated cars might solve traffic nightmare

You know who can’t wait for autonomous cars? Traffic engineers. If you’ve ever been stuck in traffic jams, especially repeatedly, you’re already aware of one of the most confounding, annoying things: kilometre after kilometre of bumpers and brake lights, and then it finally just frees up. No huge crash, no debris on the road, no four-car police takedown of an escaping bank robber.

Radio announcers will tell you “it’s just volume, folks,” when really they should be telling you, “it’s just humans being human, folks.” Traffic engineers define and anticipate how our vehicles should travel to achieve optimum results, and drivers themselves throw wrench after wrench into the works.

Traffic engineers may just be the happiest people on earth when you talk about autonomous vehicles ( able to function without a driver) and connected ones ( communicate with other vehicles and their surroundings).

“We factor perception and reaction into things like traffic signals,” explains Jen Malzer, president of the Canadian Institute of Transportation Engineers (CITE).

“For instance, a delay on a light might be two and a half seconds for ‘ time to see, time to decide.’ An automated car won’t need that much time. Our goal is always to create the right mix in the right places.”

Malzer lives and works in Calgary, but was in Toronto recently and noted the ongoing construction we’ve been choking on for years.

“Cities change, and we follow the trends of time. A lot of travel choices have to be met.” She notes that repairing ailing infrastructure is a time to meet those changes, with things like the addition of bike lanes and the lowering of speed limits.

There is an awesome little video you can watch that explains exactly how traffic does flow — and how it should flow. It ultimately offers up the best solution: automated cars. Automation will remove the human factor, a point in the win column for those champing at the bit for it get here, as well as for those of us who still have reservations.

It depicts cars acting like those on a roller- coaster, ultrasonic sensors determining a set distance that eliminates the chance for some car to perform a bolting lane change or constant bumper sniffing, the interpretive dance moves of driving.

The best drivers are predictable drivers and you can’t get much more predictable than a perfectly functioning, egoless computer. I buy into the modelling, but I will forever have trust issues with computers, from performance to security. Traffic engineers are tasked with handling it all: geography, technology, climate, human behaviour and financial constraints.

Part of the problem is that previously, roads were engineered to be travelled at a speed usually higher than what was posted. We all know the result: drivers drive the speed that feels the most natural and safest, which — surprise! — is the one it was engineered to be. Malzer says traffic engineers, especially in residential areas, are altering the way they calculate roads now.

“We know lower limits are safer,” she notes, and that traffic calming built into the original plan is more effective than aftermarket attempts to bring down the speed.

Traffic engineers are giddy with anticipation about autonomous cars. The human factor is probably the toughest part of their job, and removing it would allow them to deliver a safer, more livable experience. Malzer quotes New York City’s former transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik- Khan, as saying streets are a great public asset hiding in plain sight.

In spite of the increasing stress on the most crowded highways, there are scores of engineers and planners fiercely working to make your commute, your neighbourhood and your transportation experience not just an integral part of your life but a good one. Their excitement reveals the best way to do that: Taking us out of the equation.