From observations to drawing up strategies.
In light of the recent relaxation of the curfew in Kuwait and hence the reappearance of traffic, an idea I had previously thought, has once again resurfaced.
Every morning as I traversed my usual route to university, which consists of traveling on the Arabian Gulf road, rerouting to get on the 4th ring road, and then it was a continuous straight road to my destination. Often times there would be congestions sprouting from their usual zones — noticeably at exits on the 4th ring road and after a certain time on the whole expanse of the ring road.
It is during these congestions, that I would ponder certain questions upon which they found their birth from observation over several journeys. Each day I would set a hypothesis on which lane was faster, or whether the swerving continuously from the lane-to-lane strategy was better than staying true to one lane, and many more hypotheses — only to find them debunked the next second, day or week.
Nevertheless in the whole mess of it all, one can draw similar attributes that can be originated at the behavior of the drivers — the constituents of traffic and to some extent randomness. On the macro scale, this randomness strangely boils down to some sense of seasonality. Yet all one needs is a single-car accident or a random shock, usually generated by sudden successive breaking as an arbitrary fellow decides to nonchalantly perform the from-extreme-lane-to-exit cut, to disrupt the facade of seasonality.
Let us consider my route as a semi-closed system. This means that at any moment in time at any arbitrary part of my travels anything outside my system could cause a disruption within. However, this eventuality is uncommon, otherwise, I would’ve changed my route completely. In addition, that eventuality only occurs if a significant event happens or owing to randomness when a high profile figure is passing by. We can further define my semi-closed system as the route from and to university excluding everything outside it. What we have just done was set a boundary. Incidentally enough, this boundary in terms of my route is always fixed. However, in light of external events there is indirect influence on my travel time, the boundary becomes porous so to speak.
Looking inwards at my semi-closed system. As previously mentioned, seasonality does appear to be the predominant nature, notwithstanding its disruption from its seasonal nature is due to a set of random and quite probable events. Most disruptions in my route occur due to internal disruptions, which at times can be predicted when a certain pattern appears.
If we were to take a mean arrival time, all other arrival times would be seen to only slightly deviate from the mean. Of course, this premature conclusion is a result of an assumption that my individual driving strategy is indeed fixed or that it mirrors that of the other agents/constituents/drivers of my semi-closed system.
From a macro perspective, the route I’m discussing is optimal. The reason it is optimal is due to the observation that external events affecting my mean travel time are minimal. The nature of deviations in my mean travel time is almost solely composed of the internal events: a car crash, lane cutting, inattentive drivers gawking at a disruption, excessive breaking, and what I like to call ‘confusion zones’.
Confusion zones are the hallmark of random internal disruptions on any route. You’ll notice the effect when you realize: all lanes move at the same speed, drivers seem dazed, and the physical phenomenon of inertia and resistance to motion is at play.
One can shift the mean arrival time by varying driving strategies. I couldn’t help but notice that even amidst the internal randomness and supposed external seasonality of traffic and movement of lanes, one could spot an almost wave-like motion. In congestion, you could see the leftmost lane advance, followed by the one on its right, then finally the rightmost lane (the 4th ring road is a three-lane motorway). The pattern mentioned above only occasionally appears, and when it does appear — it stays for a set period of time until the pattern changes.
What we can infer however are the wave-like properties. All this means is that the properties supersede the actual current pattern. Picture a low energy wave crashing on a slightly inclined shore. Some parts of the wave are further ahead than others but as its mechanism suggests, after a procession of time, it fixes itself, and another part becomes ahead.
After many and many trips, my observation of a wave-like nature is insignificant in most cases. Why? You may ask. Well, its because, in order for one to make use of its wave-like nature, one ought to always be on the furthest part of the wave and just as it is about to be fixed, jumps onto the next part of the wave that’s about to overpass. Ultimately meaning that I myself ought to turn into a lane cutter who zigzags in between lanes to capitalize on this advantage. In theory, it may seem easy, but in practice, it is not very easy to do quite the contrary. Thus one has to succumb to the easier and less risky plan of sticking to one lane as opposed to risking a car accident and ultimately only slightly likely of beating a fixed lane driver by a few minutes.
Now away from motorway strategies and onto roads with traffic lights. The Arabian Gulf road is a very interesting road. As its name would suggest, it’s a road that moves parallel to the coastline of the Arabian Gulf. On the side of the coast, there are many restaurants and other such places. Meaning that at many points on the road, there are exits to vast parking spaces. These exits are either before, after, or at a traffic light. Wherever there is an exit, there exists another route of entry onto the Arabian Gulf road. At around 4 instances on the road, an exit off the road before a traffic light leads to entry onto the road after the traffic light. Aha. Opportunity, no?
Within my semi-closed system, aka my route to university, there are two of these opportunities at successive lights. Theoretically, at every red light, I can temporarily exit then re-enter the road until my final exit traffic light that would lead me to the 4th ring road. Another universal observation is that: if you are at any point on the Arabian gulf road and you find that the first traffic light you face on it is green, then there is a high probability that upon reaching any successive light, you will find it green too.
Essentially with the traffic light bypass opportunity and the universal observation just mentioned, we can conjure up a rule that goes something like this: If your first traffic light is red, bypass it and the successive lights, till your final exit light. Its antithesis is to continue in a straight line green light after green light with no stopping. As you can probably guess, most of the time I resort to using the bypass strategy as a result of successfully being within the sequence of the universal observation requires a little bit of luck and law-breaking by speeding up.
However, it is not enough to merely recognize such observations and just act on them. There is a nuance to this. Take this example; you’re speeding on the fast lane and the green light turns red — meaning you were just a bit out of the synchrony of the universal observation. What now? You risked everything and lost out on the bypass strategy? Enter the hedging strategy. Basically, sacrifice some speed in staying in either the middle or rightmost lane, so that you retain easy access to the exits upon switching between strategies. This way you are at an advantage regardless of the outcome of the traffic light.
As you have probably already deduced from my empirical statements, the only part of my route/semi-closed system that I can control is the Arabian gulf road phase. In essence, there are two classes of strategies employed in my route, which I can safely say with confidence is the less risky optimum. These two classes are the reactive strategy used in the gulf road hedging strategy and the unreactive strategy of staying put in my lane in the 4th ring road.
All in all, the purpose of this article is merely my wish to share with you my thoughts and musings regarding traffic and congestion, pondered during my daily rush whilst I made my way to university.