Traffic solutions, 30 seconds at a time | Brian Wolshon | TEDxLSU

In this TEDx talk traffic engineer Brian Wolshon explains the difference between what the average driver sees when they’re sitting in traffic and what that traffic engineer sees. A thirty second decrease in your commute translates into millions of minutes of recovered time for society. How does this math work?

In a city where traffic causes daily headaches, Baton Rouge drivers are often left looking for shortcuts. For traffic engineer and LSU’S EDWARD A. & KAREN WAX SCHMITT DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR Brian Wolshon, the solutions are only a few miles down the road. Brian has been at the forefront of creating solutions for traffic at the city level and beyond, serving as the director of the GULF COAST CENTER FOR EVACUATION AND TRANSPORTATION RESILIENCY. Regarded as a leader in his field, Brian has provided his expertise to various media outlets, including MSNBC, CNN, The Discovery Channel, USA Today, and The New York Times.

[jackmanson]

Dr. Wolshon was the best professor I have ever had. He not only taught me so much about transportation and highway engineering but also about how the real world works. He was monumental in my success in college and got me ready/excited for the career ahead of me. Also, he has a baller watch collection

[bananenklaus]

That new technology where we can connect the drivers and slow them all down to speed up again to get 60-80% traffic time reductuon is amazing. Imagine we connect all cars not "virtually" but physicaly, and then we look that the cars are more filled up. And to make it efficient we don't use small cars but bugger wagons. And the we go on the rails to have a easyer time electrifying and are more efficient. Thats right, thats a train.

[陳秉軒-cb]

8:30 "Communication technology that goes between vehicles"
Has anyone noticed those yellow blinky things on their cars? Those used to be communication technology between drivers. At the speed of light, too. I wonder why those don't

[CityWhisperer]

Speaking about how to fix traffic for 10 minutes, yet he hasn't mentioned public transport even once.

[nicolejensen]

This is really interesting. I also wish that more states started cracking down on drivers who sit in the fast lane for way too long and block the people behind them, this definitely causes major problems. In Minnesota, there is no law against this, and as he said about the blue truck, that is what causes most of the problems. So people, get out of the fast lane!

[xavierdarche]

This not much different from adding lanes. You add capacity to the road. And as he said at the beginning, if you increase capacity, demand will follow. More cars will use the road as there are less delays and the capacity you created is basically lost and delays are back to what they were.

[stauguastine]

How about having state laws that relegate 18 wheelers to the left lane only. How about enforcing current laws for drivers who obstruct traffic by driving too slow in the fast lane? Just a thought.

[bamuh]

traffic doesn't exist because there is a lot of cars traffic exists because from the front of a greenlight to the back of the line takes upwards of 30 seconds to finally start moving. In other words if people would just drive when the light turns green. Also 5 second green lights

[streetsleeper]

What everyone fails to look at is the way people drive. Lane hogging, driving too slow, driving too fast etc. When we use the roads we need to think that we are using our country’s infrastructure and how we drive impacts others, and in turn effects out economy. Too many selfish drivers out there

[banana_junior_]

Mass transit and mass transit centric urban planning is not even a part of his vocabulary?

[coritapelis]

Alguien podría explicar me en español un resumen del viedo, para un trabajo de la Universidad

[aviavi]

not much of a solution, automatic cars are a theoretical solution which depends on tech and dev, not practical. this video was not informative sadly :( nothing fancy that I as an individual driver didnt figure out by myself.

[davymonteiro]

I hate this video hahaha because my english teacher showed this one for train our listening hahaha but great informations

[pwhnckexstflajizdryvombqug]

The more impatient people are, the better traffic flows, because impatient people are not willing to sit in traffic and will find alternatives, meaning less cars on the road, meaning less congestion. If we are patient, then we will sit in traffic for as long as it takes, increasing travel times, cars on the road and making things worse.