Laura’s Winning Ideas

When leaders manage a change activity, we wonder whether we alone can affect enough change in a large organization to be worthwhile. Consider the story on this website (4 pages of reading plus flash demos). One person, dissolving traffic jams in Seattle.

This is a great explanation of how to erase traffic jams! And it works!

Traffic Waves: Physics for Bored Commuters

“It was dusk, the headlights were on, and I was going down a long hill to the bridges. I had a view of miles of highway behind me. In the neighboring lane I could see maybe five of the traffic stop-waves. But in the lane behind me, for miles, TOTALLY UNIFORM DISTRIBUTION. . . My single tiny car had erased miles and miles of stop-and-go traffic. Just one single “lubricant atom” had a profound effect on the turbulent particle flow within the entire miles of “tube.”

Now you can find out how traffic phenomena like this occur at Traffic Waves, an interesting site created and maintained by William J. Beaty, an electrical engineer in Seattle.

As the site reveals, Beaty is not an expert in “traffic physics” but rather a commuter who has had plenty of time to observe traffic patterns and try different experiments. In addition to several essays on traffic patterns and experiments, the site features illustrations, animations, related links, and a FAQ. A fun site for anyone who spends too much time behind the wheel.

Here’s another story about this item. I discovered this website when I was living in Austin, Texas, where commuter traffic is worse than Seattle. Working from home, I rarely ventured out during rush hour, to avoid the delay and fender-benders.

Every few months, I send a message out to everyone in my address book. The purpose is to be sure I have current email addresses for everyone. I look for something worthwhile to send out each time. This item seemed ideal, so I used it for my next mass mail message.

I sent this out on a Tuesday. Most of the people in my address book lived in Austin. On Wednesday, I got a call from a friend, telling me to tune my radio to a traffic station. The announcer was waxing eloquent about the lack of traffic jams throughout Austin. They couldn’t believe it. They usually filled the entire morning with details of accidents and detours to avoid the worst jams. Instead, they filled the air time with discussion about the usual worst locations for jams and how they were all free-flowing that morning. Could it be that some number of those few hundred Austinites in my address book were trying out the cure?

If you want to be added to my address book, send me a message

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