In some situations, it’s not all about throughput.
Though traffic congestion is ALWAYS about throughput. You want less congestion? Then don’t rush to the end of a closed lane and cram in. That ALWAYS hurts throughput, which ALWAYS increases congestion. Period.
Sure, if traffic IS backed up to other roads, then absolutely, fill up the closing lane and get off those other roads, though understand that filling up that lane will, always, always hurt congestion if throughput is already struggling.
Yes, they’re more efficient. They’re also more efficient than rushing up to the end of a closing lane and merging into an ALREADY FULL through-lane. That is NOT zipper merging. It is cutting in line. That will always, ALWAYS, reduce throughput. Period.
You cannot cheat physics and human predictability. Rushing to the end of a closed lane WILL NEVER INCREASE THROUGHPUT. Period,
Yes, if people were able to drive like robots. Though once traffic is already slow in the through-lanes, rushing up to the end of the closed lane and cramming in HURTS THROUGHPUT. Always. For ever. Period.
Should take place? Sure. Does it have to happen there? No.
The entire point is, if traffic is already slow, running up the closed lane to cram into already too full through-traffic IS NOT ZIPPER MERGING. It’s being an asshole further slowing traffic.
Yes, that’s most efficient, but you know what hurts efficiency?
Assholes running up an empty lane just to expect to be let into a lane that’s ALREADY full.
That’s not zipper merging. That’s being an asshole cutting in line. It ONLY slows down the queue that, sure, should have formed at the end of the closed lane in an ideal world.
Though that fact doesn’t make them a zipper merger. They’re still an asshole further slowing traffic.
How can you be anti-car and forget about trains?
I think all of those rules are explicitly against actual journalism, unless they’re supposed to be ironic. It is unwise to make ironic rules. Ignorant and autistic people that either do not understand how they’re ironic, or just miss the irony, will be learning the wrong lesson.
The vast majority of situations where people are making faces at the assholes sitting at the end of the closed lane is when traffic is already over-dense and going slow.
In those situations, which are often, racing to the end of the closing lane is just being a line-cutting shithead, and has nothing to do with zipper merging. At that point, they’re literally only butting in on through-traffic.
It does NOT reduce backups. You cannot magically increase throughput by cramming in before the bottleneck. It can reduce how physically long a backup gets, which can keep backups from growing off of the highway. Though you still cannot magically add throughput by cramming in ahead of a bottleneck. Ever. Period.
Just like most of the people in this comment section that assume it’s totally fine to rush to the front of an already full lane.
There is a reason on-ramps have their own traffic lights in dense cities to control how many try to get on at once, and it’s because all these assholes think rushing up just to slow down and cram in is magically zipper merging.
Judging by these comments, most of the assholes running to the front of an already full queue are saying, “just zipper merge! Every other driver is the asshole, not me cutting in line!”
Spoilers: You are the traffic you deserve.
The ONLY thing occupying both lanes to capacity does is kinda sorta sometimes reduce how physically long the backup is. Though if there is more traffic than the reduced lanes can handle, it WILL back up, and flying to the end of a lane that’s disappearing and merging into already full traffic only makes you a line-cutting asshole slowing more people down.
No, it costs you, and everyone already behind you three seconds. Guess which person has more people behind them in these scenarios?
It is pretentious, because this is not a discussion about zipper merging in a vacuum. There’s a comic about someone leering at someone trying to push in.
Do you think there’s time to make faces at someone in properly flowing traffic where people aren’t trying to get right next to each other?
The queue is not the lane closing. The queue is the through-traffic. The people racing to the front of an already full queue ARE NOT ZIPPER MERGING. They’re cutting in line.
The point of a zipper merge is to do it cleanly without affecting others’ speeds as much as possible. Flying to the front of a line is not matching speed, and it’s not merging cleanly.
No it is not. Ever. You cannot magically add throughput by cramming in ahead of the bottleneck. That ONLY increases density, which DEMONSTRABLY reduces speeds.
Guess what happens when speed goes down? Throughput also goes down! You cannot magically add throughput by filling space beyond what is reasonable for the speeds you want to go. That’s not how humans work.
Literally, no it is not. Nowhere does it say you have to get to the end before merging. THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT is to MATCH TRAFFIC SPEEDS AND MAKE ROOM to reduce interruptions. NOT to fill up all available space where ever you find it.
If you fly to the front past a bunch of stopped cars, you ARE NOT MATCHING SPEEDS. Those assholes are not zipper merging. Period.
The people who merge early are not utilizing all space, but THROUGHPUT IS ABOUT LANES AND SPEED. When one lane is disappearing, you CANNOT MAGICALLY ADD THROUGHPUT by cramming in before the bottleneck. Period. Ever.
And it shows exactly what I’m talking about. When people are more interested in filling lanes than merging efficiently when one is disappearing, they reduce the throughput of traffic over all.
Depends on what you mean by “the front”. Too many people do not know how to look thousands of feet down the road. Probably why so many merge too early.
The assholes that also do not know how to look thousands of feet down the road fly to the end and cram in, which does nothing but further reduce throughput because it slows the lane people need to merge into.
lol Good job imagining smoothly flowing traffic. You must not live near a major city, because lane closures on highways always devolve into the exact scenario you’re attempting to ignore.
I’ve been stop-and-go traffic probably literally hundreds of times and that’s EXACTLY how people merge: by blazing past the already stopped traffic and cram in right at the last second.
I’ve only been in smoothly flowing yet dense traffic caused by lane closures maybe a handful of times. It worked out ONLY because traffic wasn’t yet dense enough to induce a rolling stop that’d bottleneck at the closure point.
The assholes rushing up to the end of a closed lane when traffic is already slow ARE NOT ZIPPER MERGING. They’re cutting in line. They’re further increasing traffic density, which ALWAYS slows even unrestricted traffic after a certain point.
That is why rolling stops happen even without lane closures or traffic accidents: people WILL slow down once density reaches a certain point, and cramming a closed lane full is INCREASING DENSITY.
This isn’t rocket science, yet a lot of you fuckwits are clearly still playing with crayons.