Joe Cortright of City Observatory recently published an interesting post on HOT lanes (high-occupancy toll lanes) and cited a research paper by Austin Gross (University of Washington) and Daniel Brent (Louisiana State University). The paper looked at the behavioral response of drivers to dynamic HOT lane pricing. 

They way HOT lanes work is simple: when traffic is light, the price dynamically decreases; when traffic is heavy, the price dynamically increases to ensure a minimum level of service. That is, the price increases until enough cars leave the lane and driving speeds increase to some minimum threshold. In this case, it’s 45 mph.

The key takeaway from the report is that “value of reliability” appears significantly more important to drivers than “value of time”. Put differently: it’s less about the time I’m wasting in traffic and more about the uncertainty of not knowing when I’m going to arrive at my destination.

It’s for this reason that HOT lanes are used more frequently in the morning (when you’re running late for that meeting) than in evening (when you’re just on your way home from work). 

Gross and Brent estimate that the spread is about 7.5x. The typical driver values saving time at about $3 per hour and reliability improvements at about $23 per hour! This is fascinating because we tend to focus a lot on time. But arguably what people really want to buy is greater certainty.

I can tell you that it’s definitely one of the things that I love about walking to work, or for that matter cycling somewhere. I always know how long it’s going to take.

If you don’t follow the work of MIT’s Senseable City Lab, I highly recommend that you start. 

Earlier this year, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Swiss Institute of Technology, and the Italian National Research Council developed something that they call “slot-based intersections.” In a world where cars have sensors and drive themselves, it is intended as a more efficient alternative to traditional intersections. Goodbye traffic lights.

Much like air-traffic control, the way the system works is by assigning individualized time slots to each car for when they may enter an intersection. For example, in the diagram below (Sequence 01) the car approaching from the bottom left (#10) has a “stop distance slot” in front of it reserved for 3 of the cars that are currently in the intersection. The two that are traveling perpendicular to it and the car currently turning left into the same lane as #10 (on the other side of the intersection). The car in the midst of turning right (#5) is exempt because there’s no possibility of collision. 

In Sequence 02 (below) you can see that car #10 is now turning left, which means it has its own time slot in the intersection. Other approaching cars now have a “stop distance slot” dependent on car #10.

In all cases, cars making a right turn are able to move freely, provided they will not interfere with any other cars.

The researchers estimate that real-time slot allocation might double the number of vehicles that a traditional traffic-light intersection can handle today and, in some cases, it might completely eliminate stop and go traffic.

Often when I write about self-driving vehicles I hear people tell me that cars are still cars. It doesn’t matter whether they are self-driving or not. The same inefficiencies apply. They are not the solution to urban gridlock. Elon Musk was also criticized (following his Master Plan) for not properly understanding urban geography.

But self-driving cars will create new efficiencies. I am not saying that they are a silver bullet, but I am saying that they will help a great deal. I don’t think that anyone truly understands the extent of these efficiencies, but there are a myriad of possibilities. This Senseable City Lab project is a perfect example.

What I am grappling with right now is the relationship between self-driving vehicles and traditional forms of public transit. Until we get a handle on the efficiencies and overall impact, it’s hard to ascertain how these different forms of mobility will work together. My gut tells me that the lines are bound to get blurry and that self-driving “cars” will feel less and less like the cars we know today.

Below is a video that was published along with the research. If you can’t see it, click here.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CZc3erc_l4?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

Roman Mars of 99% Invisible recently published an excellent episode called The Mind of an Architect. It has to do with a set of research studies completed in the late 1950s by an organization at the University of California, Berkeley known as the Institute of Personality Assessment and Research (IPAR).

IPAR was founded by a personality psychologist named Donald MacKinnon. He initially worked for the precursor to the CIA and founded IPAR with the intent of studying “combat readiness and efficiency.” But over fears of how creative the Soviets were getting, the focus of IPAR shifted to instead studying creativity.

And architects were deemed to be an ideal test subject (from 99percentinvisible.org):

“Researchers saw architects as people working at a crossroads of creative disciplines, a combination of analytic and artistic creativity. As professionals, architects had to be savvy as engineers and businessmen; as aesthetes, they also acted as designers and artists.”

So over a series of weekends in the late 1950s, some of the most celebrated minds in architecture – including people like Philip Johnson, Richard Neutra, and Louis Kahn – were studied and picked apart. 

They were asked to do quick sketches, create mosaics, and they were asked questions such as this one: “For the next 45 minutes we would like you to discuss this notion: if man had developed a third arm, where might this arm be best attached?”

In the end, here’s what they concluded:

The researchers began to notice certain patterns across creatives of all professions and genders, including a tendency to nonconformity and high personal aspirations. They also found many creatives shared a preference for complexity and ambiguity over simplicity and order. Creatives could make unexpected connections and see patterns in daily life, even those lacking high intelligence or good grades.

In short: IPAR found that creative people tend to be nonconforming, interesting, interested, independent, courageous and self-centered, at least in general. Many of these traits may seem obvious today, but they were not necessarily obvious prior to these studies. Back when their tests were being conducted and findings presented in the 1950s and ’60s, the very idea of a “creative personality” was a novelty in academic and public discourse.

The findings may not be groundbreaking to us today, but the documents and recordings produced during the study are certainly interesting. If you’re into this topic, there’s also this book you can pick up.

Oh, and if we are to have a third arm, I would like mine to run almost parallel to my existing dominant arm (right). That way I could double up on my most potent dexterity. It would also be far less intrusive than an arm on one’s head or in the middle of one’s back. Then again, it would ruin our symmetry as humans. And perhaps that third arms need to be celebrated instead of being masked.

What would you suggest?

Image: Institute of Personality and Social Research, University of California, Berkeley / The Monacelli Press (via 99% Invisible)