Nov

8

Ants and traffic

Filed Under Complexity | 

Studying ant behavior to gain insights into emergent order isn’t exactly a new idea, but it’s nice to see some ongoing work that might have practical implications in the relatively near term: Ants can teach us how to beat city congestion, claim scientists:

[Dr Dirk Helbing, et al] set up an “ant motorway” with two routes of different widths from the nest to some sugar syrup. Soon the narrower route soon became congested.

But when an ant returning along the congested route to the nest collided with another ant just starting out, the returning ant pushed the newcomer onto the other path.

However, if the returning ant had enjoyed a trouble-free journey it did not redirect the newcomer.

The result was that just before the shortest route became clogged the ants were diverted to another route and traffic jams never formed.

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