Self-Organizing Systems
April 8th, 2005 | by Craig |Something that has always fascinated me has been the tendency for folks to self-organize, given a basic set of rules.
Example: You’ll notice on a lot of streets and roads that vehicles don’t always follow the yellow and white lines; they just kind of go where is natural. It’s especially evident after a snowstorm, and before the plows get out. You’ll see where people drive, and it’s not always where the lines are. Yet no one gets hurt.
When I was at UM, the sidewalks were laid out with great precision, yet there were ruts in the grass where people actually walked. When you thought about it, it was really where the sidewalks should have been.
One university (I can’t remember which, and I’m too lazy to Google it) expanded its campus, and before it built sidewalks, it allowed the ruts to be worn in the ground. Then, they built sidewalks where the ruts were, and there are no ruts in the grass.
I say all this to bring your attention to this article about how changing the timing on yellow lights has reduced the number of tickets and accidents.
Reading the article, you’ll find that increasing the time that a yellow light is on before it changes to red reduces the number of accidents and tickets, while reducing the time has a similar increase in accidents and tickets.
To me, this is just adjusting the rules to fit what is already happening, and it works.
4 Responses to “Self-Organizing Systems”
By DMerriman on Apr 8, 2005 | Reply
It’s my understanding that the Air Force Academy did this. Might not be the one you’re thinking of, but…
By Craig on Apr 8, 2005 | Reply
That may be the one. I don’t recall for certain.
By rita on Apr 9, 2005 | Reply
As any rancher could tell you, a cow trail is always the easiest route up a hill. And people aren’t that much different from cows….some less so than others.
I wish they would do that here with the yellow lights. They change so quickly that often there’s not time to react.
By McGehee on May 2, 2005 | Reply
There’s a rule of thumb about setting speed limits, called the 85th-percentile rule. The presumption is precisely what you’re talking about here — that the overwhelming majority of people will drive at or below the best safe speed on a given stretch of road, and so it makes sense to use their experience tod etermine what the legal limit should be.
When a street I lived on at the time was widened, the county left the same old speed limit in place, and then a CHP cruiser started handing out speeding tickets for several days. Those CHiPs did a lot of business.
A few weeks later the limit was raised.