CONTACTTRAFFICABOUT TOM VANDERBILTOTHER WRITING CONTACT ABOUT THE BOOK

Archive for November 10th, 2010

Why Traffic Slows at Tunnel Approaches

Via ENR, an interesting piece on tunnels, shockwaves, and traffic psychology.


“If everybody goes the same speed and distance and nobody uses the brakes, you can through-put more vehicles,” Khattak said.

These tunnel-driving behaviors are so notorious that the proposal for the group interested in widening the HRBT suggests making the tunnel four lanes in each direction and the approaches only three lanes.

Scerbo noted, though, that regardless of how many lanes are added at the tunnels, many drivers will still brake.

Although some of these driver reactions can’t be controlled, the physical environment they’re reacting to can.

“We’ve tried to counter this whole perception that you’re driving into a hole in the water… so you don’t feel like you’re going into a different environment than you’re coming from,” said Dwayne Cook, regional operations manager for the Virginia Department of Transportation.

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Google] [MySpace] [Slashdot] [StumbleUpon] [Yahoo!]
Posted on Wednesday, November 10th, 2010 at 11:40 am by: Tom Vanderbilt
13 Comments. Click here to leave a comment.
Traffic Tom Vanderbilt

How We Drive is the companion blog to Tom Vanderbilt’s New York Times bestselling book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), published by Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S. and Canada, Penguin in the U.K, and in languages other than English by a number of other fine publishers worldwide.

Please send tips, news, research papers, links, photos (bad road signs, outrageous bumper stickers, spectacularly awful acts of driving or parking or anything traffic-related), or ideas for my Slate.com Transport column to me at: info@howwedrive.com.

For publicity inquiries, please contact Kate Runde at Vintage: krunde@randomhouse.com.

For editorial inquiries, please contact Zoe Pagnamenta at The Zoe Pagnamenta Agency: zoe@zpagency.com.

For speaking engagement inquiries, please contact
Jenna Meulemans at the Knopf Speaker Bureau.

Order Traffic from:

Amazon | B&N | Borders
Random House | Powell’s

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Google] [MySpace] [Slashdot] [StumbleUpon] [Yahoo!]
U.S. Paperback UK Paperback
Traffic UK
Drive-on-the-left types can order the book from Amazon.co.uk.

For UK publicity enquiries please contact Rosie Glaisher at Penguin.

Upcoming Talks

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Google] [MySpace] [Slashdot] [StumbleUpon] [Yahoo!]
Twitter
November 2010
M T W T F S S
« Oct   Dec »
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930