Shockwave traffic jams recreated for first time
What it is
A one-minute New Scientist clip showing a Japanese experiment in which drivers on a circular track produce a spontaneous traffic jam that travels backward. It illustrates phantom traffic jams without any obstacle.
Why Hacker News recommends it
It is the go-to demonstration HN links whenever traffic shockwaves, phantom jams or cascading failures come up.
- 1 people recommended it
- 1 different months
- 0 strong recommendations
- first 2009, last 2026
What HN commenters said
“but have a look at this video.”
Circular track study showing back-propagating waves from constant-speed driving.
DigitalJack, 2013-10 · Recommendation · in “How traffic actually works”
Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.
Topics: phantom traffic jams, traffic flow, experiment, emergent behavior, congestion
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