That's why I love these videos over a talk show rant. I've actually learned the reasons behind the meters and traffic flow rather than just be upset with traffic.
So the ramps are working out well for you, then? Think for yourself. Now traffic has to slow down because the new cars are trying to merge while accelerating from 0-60. They should add more lanes instead of intentionally forcing you to stop at a DAMN RED LIGHT ON THE HIGHWAY.
@@hxhdfjifzirstc894 Adding more lanes every time you have traffic problems is how you end up with the I-10 in Houston. And as said in the video, these have been demonstrated to work. There are a lot of things in urban design that don't make sense intuitively.
@@hxhdfjifzirstc894 I've never seen traffic going 60 mph when the ramp lights are activated. If the density is high enough to turn on ramp signals, traffic flow is at 30 mph or less. Plus, entering vehicles are able to pick a place to merge and zipper in much safer when not having to account for the merging ramp lanes. The data tells me that ramps are working out for all of us. Oh, wait, I didn't notice your all caps and expletive, of course you're correct, my mistake.
The biggest problem with ramp meters is how they conflict with many people's views of how a highway on ramp is supposed to work. It takes cars a bit of time to get up to highway speeds because we don't all drive fast corvettes. Common sense dictates that a highway on ramp is the perfect space for this, so having to stop at the end is a bit frustrating for many people. It's also difficult for someone who is unfamiliar with an area to know how much traffic might be expected at any given time, so it might be a surprise to come up to a metered ramp and have to stop when you can't see how much traffic is on the highway due to obstructions. I would really love to see an experiment where they test if many of these frustrations could be solved by putting the meter at the top of the highway ramp, or at least a little closer towards the top, and then creating a longer turn-lane to get onto the highway. Gives people comfort that they can get "Up to speed" (even though there's no speed during a traffic jam) and also gives people a better indication of how much traffic might be on the highway because you can better see the slow traffic in front of you. I have no idea if this is a viable option because I am just a random person and not an engineer of any kind, it's just my observations from occasionally driving through cities with ramp meters and feeling somewhat uncomfortable.
Lots of complicated things are counterintuitive. Traffic engineering is complicated, therefore you sorta have to become an expert to have an idea of what is happening and how everything works. Layman approach just doesn't work
Rob is a QUALITY ADDITION to the educational video essayists on UA-cam. I don't know of any other transportation science channel with this much charisma
This video deserves a follow-through two years later, because one major question hasn't been addressed: When does it get the point that a lack of runway distance slows the right lane of the freeway to the point that the staggered platoons do more harm than good for freeway flow? When I lived in Cali, I wasn't a big fan of the lights, but I really despised when they left only maybe 100-200 feet of runway. Routinely (especially with semis) vehicles would be forced to merge at around 35-40. The right lane of the freeway was terrible, and I tended to just stay in the middle or 2nd lane at all times to avoid the mess.
I live in the middle of The Ruhr. The busiest motorway here is the A40. It is practically the most important motorway in the entire area. It passes through all of the Ruhr, connects all major cities and goes all the way to the Dutch border. If the A40 is deadlocked, nobody gets anywhere any time soon. Traffic lights on the ramps have indeed improved things here. Sure, traffic jams still do happen. But compared to before the traffic lights were a thing it has gotten a lot better.
@@vnixned2 In The Netherlands they are called '(toerit) doseer installaties' and you often find them on onramp of highways that have a high frequency of traffic jams. They usully have a sub sign that reads 'bij groen 1 auto'. I had to do some searching on Google Maps, but I found one of the A28 onramp of 'De uithof': www.google.com/maps/@52.0922308,5.1945102,3a,75y,92.68h,85.5t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sTzWm8EiDNFtcWkdrgv54AA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 In Germany they are called zuflussregelungsanlage and can be found near Duisburg, Dordmund and Oberhaussen. At least that is where I spotted them before I migrated to the US in 2009.
growing up in the twin cities, i remember family members coming in from out of town thinking stop lights on the freeway ramps was the craziest thing they'd ever seen.
We have a freeway entrance near me with a fairly short on ramp. It is not easy to merge. Inevitably someone will panic and stop just before merging leaving them with no space to get up to speed. This also forces everyone behind them to stop so even when they do get in, the next person has the same problem and now there is traffic on the on ramp. A few people have figured out that by waiting a few hundred feet back for the traffic to clear they can leave room to get up to speed and restart the flow. This is starting to catch on but it leads to people who don't understand absolutely loosing their minds that the car in front of them doesn't move up when there is a gap. They could really use one of these lights here. Ideally with a sensor that makes it red if traffic is detected stopped ahead.
@@croissantdiet7513 yep especially considering whenever a road has traffic problems the most popular suggestion is to build more lanes, when that just induces more demand to use that road and can make little difference.
I don't know if this happens everywhere else, but I get this a lot in Portland. The traffic on the freeway is already crap, and the meter is on, but no one is moving because the cars trying to merge onto the freeway can't because the flow is stopped or nearly stopped. So the line on the ramp backs up through the meter, and I'm sitting there at the meter counting the green lights that WOULD have allowed me to go IF it weren't for the line of stopped cars in front of me. Every. Friggin. Day.
Colorado Springs has recently installed ramp meters on the I-25, and so many people complained. CDOT had to send everyone a little pamphlet to explain how and why they work, and this video was very similar to it. You are such an awesome video creator, I’m surprised you don’t work PR at some big company!
Reality trumps theory. If they worked, YOU WOULDN'T NEED A PAMPHLET. Or a video. Start thinking for yourself. Traffic slows down the instant the meters switch on.
@@hxhdfjifzirstc894 no, it's the difference between individual and global optimization, like "tragedy of the commons". There are situations where making something 5% worse for 50% of people makes something 20% better for everyone. It feels bad when you are in the 50%. If *you* didn't have to sit in line, you'd be home 5 minutes sooner. But if *nobody* sat in line, it'd take 20 minutes longer to get home.
@@PsRohrbaugh eh, we don't have this in most of the Northeast. Probably because we drive aggressively and don't have time for people who don't understand the rules of the road. For those that want to merge, they need to find a way to blend in as they do not have the right of way. If you are timid, you'll get honked at like crazy. Those that hit the brakes in the slow lane to allow someone to merge will get honked at like crazy. Those in the slow lane may ease off the gas slightly to create a pocket and the one merging needs to get up to speed to merge effectively. Maybe in the West and South people use their kindness to override any sort of proper driving order and they think we are rude. But, again, we don't have these wonderful "aids" that other parts of the country have. Woe is us...
I really appreciate this breakdown showing how city planners can optimize traffic. But I can't help but watch this and think that expanding light rail makes more sense. We design and build our freeways to operate at max capacity for a couple hours a day. Then they are underutilized for 18-20 hours a day. Plus the entire weekend. They are designed around a volume they only see 12% of the time. A light rail could fix this by adding more trails during peak times. And coupled with the urban highways mass transit would level off the peaks allowing a smaller highway to spend more time at peak capacity without being overloaded. Also seems easy for a city to have special services during sporting events, concerts, and other events that would shock the system. I would love to see a breakdown of how mass transit could be used to delay or flat-out replace the need for a freeway expansion. Keep up the good work.
As a truck driver, I prefer having these instead of 20 cars merging at once. I can't always get over for the cars, so having fewer cars merging is much safer.
Live it when people don't know how to merge into a highway. Trying to merge 20 under the speed limit of the freeway forcing everyone to brake behind them.
Unfortunately the lights on the ram make it worse becuase it conditions these drives to the idea they should be merging at 20mph. Best I have seen was a ramp with signs literally saying to speed up and merge lol.
I’ve actually pulled over on the shoulder of an onramp and waited for that a$$hole to get a mile up the road so I could actually get up to a proper speed before merging and not die getting on the freeway.
@@jefffinkbonner9551 Same, except it was to drive past him... he was also too stupid to know that during rush hour the shoulders are extra lanes that start on that exit.
The problem is that there's not enough ramp after the meter. You either have to completely floor it or drive a completely overpowered vehicle in order to get to up to that speed of traffic after being completely stopped. If the ramp was longer after the meter, it wouldn't happen.
@@AlexandarHullRichter that's what happens when the meters were designed and installed after the original highway project - onramps have meters installed, but aren't lengthened because that costs a lot of money.
Love it! I went to college for Civil Engineering, and my focus area was transportation engineering. I had a professor who had a lot of involvement with MNDOT and the ramp metering system in the Twin Cities. In his classes, we made extensive use of TICAS to gather typical data and PTV Vissim to do traffic modeling, including an awful lot of study into ramp meters, using real data and existing roads. This totally brought me back to those days, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. You did a much better job presenting the material than that professor did - thank you!
Wow, this is cool and makes me want to study harder since I'm doing the exact same thing since now I'm about to be in my junior year major courses😂🙌🏾 my local cities in the suburbs of Atlanta are finally getting metered lights since traffic is abismal
Ugggh mn is the worst lol. I’m sure I am wrong but I thought I remember hearing MN is one of the only remaining states that has this? I’m sure they others but it doesn’t seem to popular. Wonder if more are being added in other states now. I can not recall seeing too many in the other states I have drove through. Interesting
I agree 100%, just subbed today! This guy is interesting, informative, has high production value, and covers unique topics. I'm surprised he doesn't have more subscribers.
My problem with the meters have always been how much they slow down semi trucks. They always have hard enough time getting up to speed anyway, but these meters reduce their on-ramp even more and causing backups on the freeway.
I remember when Minnesota meters were turned off and my memory is that traffic actually flowed better as there was no slow moving cars coming from a stop so close to the freeways. My memory is also there was a state budget shut down which is why the meters were really shut down. These days half the people just ignore the meter and drive right past them.
I live in a city with no ramp meters (Orlando). I've only encountered them as a tourist, and my main issues is with on-ramps that give you insufficient distance to get up to the speed of highway traffic. When you are in a vehicle with a 15-25+ second 0-60 time, you have to stand on the gas and pray there will be an opening for you to cut someone off, because there isn't enough room for you to slow back down on the ramp. Not everyone drives a modern passenger vehicle with good acceleration. I drive a cargo van, and am blown away by how sporty my friend's civic is (with the base model engine).
A note about the Minneapolis studies - from a resident. Minneapolis had the system for many decades with the signals stopping traffic most of the time and a huge dissatisfaction with the long delays when the highways were flowing fast. The highway department shut down the system and started over, doing studies about traffic flow and redesign the light strategy to limit the lights to operate when there was clear advantage to them.
Indeed, MnDOT made it quite a bit better after. Meters had their start and stop times adjusted, some were shut off where traffic flowed _better_ without them, and the overall system controlling them was made smarter. Incidentally, don't blow through one of our ramp meters when one is red with nobody waiting -- unless maybe you're in a truck that needs the extra acceleration distance. Wait for a green; you'll have an easier time merging into traffic. (The meter will stay red when a clump of heavier traffic is going by, and turn green when it thins out a little.)
Nice video, Rob! This is an example of a city doing ramp metering right. You were able to catch the meters down during times that they should be running (because of low density). Other cities who put their meters on timers so that they are on from 6am to 9am and from 3pm to 6pm are doing it wrong. You end up at a meter waiting in a queue while the freeway is empty - this is frustrating! It's like the current school zone lights that are flashing while school is out - and a camera van in the school zone catching speeders. Not quite as intended, and frustrating.
I know I'm going urbanist circlejerk on a road video but like people's reaction to these things really highlights the american public's perception of transit, travel, and public services people don't want to sacrifice the possibility of getting there faster, even if everyone on average will get there slower even if obviously that's not how statistics work and any indivitual will almost always get there slower. truly, we are committed to our ideals
WOW! Super job, Rob! An observation: Caltrans seems to have implemented *very* sophisticated metering control systems. It is possible that the benefits of metering turn into detriments if the metering control isn't *just so* (e.g. dumb timers, or some perverse interaction between model functions in the computerized control network)? This made me *much* better understand living through the meters-off experiment in Minneapolis/St. Paul. Gov. Ventura (the former WWE wrestler, who "ain't got time to bleed") was a big proponent of turning the meters off. At the time I figured, "Yeah! Shut these nuisances down, man!" But, now I see that doing so only made things worse! Brilliant! (also: the state legislature *really* hated Ventura, so too bad they didn't brand his name all over the experiment, so that when it failed, some guy at MNDoT (or, *you* as their media consultant) could show how much of a brainlet Mr. Ventura was---aside: while he didn't always have the best ideas, I'd vote for Ventura again, if he ever returned to Minnesota from his retirement home in Mexico).
This is one of the most niche channels on UA-cam and I love every second of it! I love when my super specific and weird nerdiness collides with someone else's! :)
8:40 is exactly how the stupid average motorist defeats the best planning. A vehicle easily capable of adjusting speed to smoothly merge into a large gap instead creates a conflict by entering the freeway at a location occupied by an existing traveler.
I love the drivers who choose not to accelerate (when traffic is free flowing) and feel it's perfectly ok to merge onto the freeway at 30 MPH, slowing the line of traffic on the on-ramp as well as causing needless merging and slowing on the main line.
@@wotm8870 My 72 hp mirage have no issue dragging itself to 40 mph onto NY I495, like no sweat, 3000 rpm max. Your car has to do better than mine. If you are 10 mph below the speed limit, or traffic flow (which ever is slower), other cars will be more inclined to just overtake you than slow down for you. I am trying to encourage more people 1) when driving on right lanes , to be ready to give way to mergers and 2) when merging, to drive fast and follow the traffic flow and not to break it (be sure the ramp is sufficiently long and provides a clear sight of view of the traffic). Don't take it as an offense.
@@navyguyhm3 they slow everything down. bunch of rookies who need to go to traffic school. They are often nervous to do 3 things at a time. 1) Accelerate 2) Find a spot over your left shoulder 3) Make sure you dont hit the wall on the right or go off the road.
I lived through the MN ramp meter experiment. I was hoping you were going to mention it here and I'm nerdily excited that you're doing a whole video on it!
There are a few I ignore in San Diego County because they should not be on. In particular Palomar Airport Road's offramp is under reconstruction, and it's down to 1 lane. People also tend to not read the 2 per light sign. Palomar Airport Road is the busiest road in North County, yet it is metered worse than all the other roads connected to the highway right now. As a result, it backs up several miles in the morning and afternoon which causes a lot of street incidents. I also generally ignore them on a motorcycle because 3/4th the time the censor does not detect my motorcycle. About 2/3rds of San Diego Counties sensors do not detect motorcycles, and 1/10th are completely broken.
I try to merge at 80 to 140MPH (depends on what I'm driving and length of on-ramp). There is no speed limit on " on-ramps". The faster I merge, people tend to clear a space, or at 90MPH plus, I can find an empty space to safely merge. All cars can decelerate much faster than they can accelerate, so slowing down to fit in to a space is easy. Once on the freeway, I normally cruse at 50 to 60 in the left lane, or just a bit slower than other traffic.
Tips for Americans that we use: -Use the right lane most of the time, left lane is for overtaking. -When you're on the highway and before reaching an on-ramp move to the left lane to make it easier for the cars coming in. -Allways keep at the least 20 to 30 meters or more safe distance between cars depending on your speed. -Dont just look to the car in front of you, try to look beyond him to be ready if something happens and you have to brake. -Dont just look at your mirrors, use your head to check the blind spot when changing lanes. -Before reaching slow traffic or a traffic jam, or suddenly braking turn on your hazard lights to warn drivers behind you.. -Dont stay in someone else's blind spot, move out fast when you're in that position. Bonus tips: -Use the left blinker when you're on the left lane and want to overtake the car in front of you, so he knows to move over to the right lane. -Use the hazard lights blinking once or twice to thank someone behind you. -Use the hazard lights to warn other drivers of cops and radar -
@@truckercowboyed2638 You don't have to move to the left it's a matter of courtesy, but as long as you can do it safely, you can do so to help other people out and avoid traffic jams on the on-ramp, and in smaller countries it helps a lot, but if you're a selfish lazy person just keep going as you wish.
@@ElySky95 we flash out high beams here for that, using a left signal would probably just confuse someone or they'll just think you left it on by mistake
Houston added these (or at least started using them) a little while back near where I work... with how close the next exit is and then the interstate exchange so close it certainly doesn't feel like it does anything... some days the red to green is less than a second, just flashes back and forth it seems. as a motorcyclist I would be really interested in a video seeing the impact of motorcycles in lane filtering and lane splitting... and how the size volume would impact traffic (being that average motorcycle is 1/2 the length of the average car and obviously much narrower...)
Funny rant in the beginning although I feel like I am hearing the term "surface streets" for the first time maybe because I have been living in this country for only over a decade ?
Yeah, it's an American thing. Because freeways typically travel over ot under cross streets, we lazily call city streets "surface streets" (because they are on the surface -- neither elevated nor depressed).
It's kinda of a California thing, I didn't realize till after I left. I think because in these big urban centers, freeways are often below grade or elevated.
@@davidgutierrez-aguirre4807 store vs market. Are these terms mutuality exclusive where you speak English? Is a side streets also a surface street, or is a side street more representative of a residential street not intended for through traffic? Wtf is a thoroughfare? Lol cheers from Los Angeles
@@ossumopossum As long as it's not elevated or depressed, it's a surface street. But the term is usually used in conjunction with roads near highways that change elevation.
@@ossumopossum And thoroughfare is just a busy, main street. Synonymous with avenue, boulevard, arterial, parkway or any main street with a lot of vehicle traffic.
I'm from California. Southern California. Oceanside, California to be right. I wanna say this. Does Ramp Meters or Ramp Signals work? Yes, they do work. When they where brought into California in the 1980s, some people liked them and others hated them. Some say they are confusing and aren't fair. That is in the big cities of Los Angeles and San Diego. A great old 20th century idea that is going on strong. Removing them is just pure stupidity. Good video by the way.
Here in Colorado those meters don't work because both the left lane and the right lane lights change at the same time. I just run the light while the car in the other lane is stopped which makes the most sense.
This is your best one yet Rob, informative and entertaining with an excellent understanding of the 4 dimensional puzzle that is traffic flow on freeways. You've earned the sub
Good video. Finally someone explains it's not about breaking up the traffic to prevent traffic jams (obviously doesn't work in LA) but make them shorter when they inevitably happen (your last graph was the winner). This actual data I can appreciate rather than people just making dogmatic claims that it works and is worth it.
I gotta say yes, they definitely work. I was getting on I-405 in the San Fernando Valley at 9am weekdays, and for some reason the ramp meters were off, despite it still being morning rush-hour. The right-hand lanes of the 405 ground to a near-standstill, making it difficult for cars to get on the freeway, and which led to traffic backing-up all the way onto the street, with several cars blocking the intersections regularly. IDK if the meters were just broken, or LADOT was doing a similar experiment as Minnesota, but if they were experimenting, that'd be ridiculous! We already knew the results!
Ramp lights are a Band Aid to cover up faulty freeway construction. For instance, there's a red light on a 65 mph freeway mornings on State Route 125 southbound in La Mesa, California. After the signal, 2 lanes merge into one. The actual ramp is coming from I-8 westbound but has no signal. The I-8 ramp to 94 was built before the continuation of 125 was built. There's always a slowdown for 3 miles as one of the I-8 ramp lanes ends, and until the intersections with 94 east using ramps from streets. The whole thing's a giant mess. There's plenty of room to rebuild it with two proper interchanges and a wider freeway between SR 94 and I-8, and the lane painting ignores wide concrete lanes already there. Oh yeah, the ramp from I-8 eastbound to 125 northbound isn't one sweeping curve -- it consists of 2 different curves, so you have to turn the steering wheel halfway through the ramp. Whoever designed this should be sentenced to driving on it 16 hours a day.
Great engineering explanation I've been curious to learn about! I'm still amazed at how few cars a freeway moves per hour compared to trains and other modes, yet we still give so much space and money to building out "one more lane." Innovations like these help us better utilize the lanes we already have, and hopefully will free up resources to build more efficient solutions to transit.
1. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ROAD GUY ROB VIDEO 2. Can you find out why they don't seem to use yellow flashing arrows for California's Left Turn arrows? Working night shifts, I will wait at an empty red light waiting for a green arrow for minutes, when a flashing yellow left turn arrow back in NY would've just let me go.
@@RoadGuyRob The world would be better with 5 Road Guy Robs so we could get 5 videos in the time it takes to make one. That being said, I can be patient for the great content you're able to provide :)
Depends on if there is a need check out this video ua-cam.com/video/dUQbuLzkViw/v-deo.html as a professional I don’t like permissive turns (the flashing yellow denotes that clearly instead of none shown) but with volumes and clear signals (in combination with green - protected left turns- and red arrows) along with enough 3E’s = engineering, education, enforcement- it should work
It's an interesting video, but there are other considerations a computer should probably take, in addition to just 1600 cars per hour. There's an on ramp meter on I-15 South at Foothill Blvd in the Inland Empire, and the signal actually is more often at fault for slowing freeway traffic. Cars entering at 25mph affect the freeway much more than cars entering at 55. It's not always a perfect system everywhere.
I find the trade-offs fascinating. I remember the ramp lights in Atlanta back in the 70s. Then they went away. Now they're back. Is interesting to me as what the meter does most is (attempt) to force a gap between cars which allows for smoother merging. (Imagine if we could do the same on the main lane). On the flip side, we also want to maximize the cars through the light back on the side road, so we create multiple turn lanes. And merge them on the ramp. Which increases density on the ramp, the last of which happens right before hitting the freeway. So, when the meters *are* on, they help undo that effect. When they're of though, it's nuts at the ramp.
I believe some ramps address this with signs saying something like "form two lanes when meters are active" -- they're wide enough to fit two lanes, but marked as one lane for off-peak traffic.
In theory it might work in some rural area but the reality is it has never worked in places like Los angeles and Orange county. Once the light turns green so many people slow the traffic down even more trying to get all the way across to the left lane as fast as possible. And in the shortest distance
Some on ramps were not designed for that. Where I grew up in Corte Madera they put meters on the on ramp to 101 and that backs up the main drag in town going over the overpass with everyone waiting for the metering light to go green
These are not new - If memory serves me correctly, I first saw these in Fort Worth, Texas in 1976 when I was working on the FB-111 program at General Dynamics. They were quite effective in dealing with heavy "freeway" "mixmaster" rush hour traffic in those days.
I understand the math and logic behind it, but the problem disappears with an exit/entrance lane. I don't know exactally what they are called, but the lanes that go from exit to exit, and stretch for the half mile or mile between exits. Those allow much more traffic to flow through then ramp meters ever will. Having an on ramp merge into the third lane of traffic just didn't work before the meter, and won't work with the meter either. Not to mention a lot of places don't have the room for these meters, and they get clogged very easily all the way back to the in town traffic, so then they make 3 or 4 really narrow lanes for the meter which just costs money, and messed up traffic for a couple weeks. Sure they work in some scenarios, but it seems most of them are poorly placed, or they should have used the money on another road improvement
The ramp meter at the 605N/210E is an interesting one and it's on all the time at evening rush hour. That ramp traffic merges into the far right lane which is also interesting. This could make a good video about 'reducing conflicts' and why specifically in California they have so many lanes that just close or merge suddenly with limited-to-no signage. There are a lot of spots around here that the signage is quite frankly terrible and the traffic is totally mismanaged (57S->60W->57S).
Sins of past decades- easier to fix then, now you would have to wait for a big project, data from a bunch of non-fatal collisions, or a lawsuit due to fatal collision... or could be stolen signs or faded stripes. Do report those into Caltrans Maintenance Service Request csr.dot.ca.gov/index.php/Msrsubmit/
They tried this in Detroit back in the nineties. It doesn't work. Too many accidents because people assumed they were intended to eliminate the need to still merge at traffic speed. Many cars entered driving way to slow. There was also a ton of rear end collisions at the lights. Myself, if I get stopped by one of these I am balls out racing to the bottom of the ramp when it changes to make up time I was forced to wait for the damn signal. The program was shut down within the year it was introduced. I'd rather sit in traffic than wait to get into traffic. These are almost as bad as the traffic circles I avoid by using secondary roads to make normal turns.
Sounds good in theory. But in practice, not every minute of every day has the same traffic. Timed ramp lights assume a constant and steady flow, hence releasing cars ALMOST ALWAYS at the wrong rate for maximum efficiency. There's nothing more frustrating than driving up a ramp, observing a fast-moving freeway flow, but being forced to stop because the stupid light was stuck in the wrong cycle. Furthermore, ramps were designed so incoming cars could merge by speeding up and matching speeds just before the merge point. Putting a stop light at that point defeats the purpose of the merging concept. It's sorta like the opposite of a roundabout, which converts crossing motions to merging ones. A ramp stoplight converts smooth merging motions to jerky stop & go's.
Here in the Twin Cities, the ramp meters _continuously_ flash yellow when not in use, reminding you there's a functioning ramp meter there. There's also a _very short_ yellow (not even half a second?) after each one-car-per-green, so they _never_ go directly from green to red.
Rewatching this again a few years later after you posted the short about it, still one of my favorite RGR videos. Probably because I watched the video and then a few days later happened to see a ramp meter for the first time.
Here's a good question for you, I live in California too, and I encounter these freeway stop lights all the time. However I've noticed that there's a red light on the other side of the red green freeway entrance lights. But like, what purpose do they serve? They don't change color or turn off if the other light is green, it's just a solid single red light. However, I can't think of the situation where anyone is ever going to see them? So what are they used for?
Good question. Should have included. The signal on the back is red when the light is red for drivers. It turns off during greens. This lets CHP officers sitting beyond the meter know if a driver ran a red light.
i was wondering that too! from what i remember they only show red when the actual signal is red too. wikipedia says this is for the highway patrol to park further down the highway and spot anyone who’s running a red
@nick fifteen. It's for CHP to be able to tell if a person went through on a red meter or not. If a car goes through and the solid red light is on, the CHP officer will know that they illegally went through it. Hope this helps
Melbourne Australia has installed ramp meters on much of the urban freeway network including the Monash, West Gate, Eastern Tullamarine Freeways and the M80 Ring Road. The typical arrangement has one car per green with two lanes at the on ramp allowing a pair of vehicles to enter each time, and the signals here go green-amber-red rather than green to red. When the system first activates or shuts down the signals flash amber for a short period with electronic warning signs before the freeway entrances warning drivers that the signals are on.
Here in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis - St Paul, Minnesota, US), the ramp meters go green-yellow-red too -- with a _very short_ yellow, since they're only letting cars through one at a time. They also continuously flash yellow ("proceed with caution") when _not_ in use, typically anytime outside of weekday rush hours. And at the beginning of their rush-hour cycling, they transition to solid green for a bit _before_ they start stopping ramp traffic. Also, too many people just run them when they're red with nobody waiting. I never do, because a.) short of a malfunction or a _real_ emergency, I'm not going to blatantly, intentionally run a red light; b.) I understand what they're doing to improve traffic; and c.) the system is smart enough to react to traffic conditions, and doesn't keep you at red for no reason. If it's _staying_ red, there's probably a clump of heavy traffic in the main lanes, and I'm more likely to find a gap to safely merge into if I wait for a green.
At first I was very sceptical about this channel as it's literally about roads and cars as a mode of transport is inefficient. But I appreciate the traffic calming video, the aspects of nature being destroyed in suburbanisation and the efficiency needed. Also the rapid bus video was great. It's obviously still car leaning but gives alternatives a fair chance and room for discussion. So keep up the work.
Interesting stuff really. I never saw those red lights on any freeway ramp here in germany. I was curious about them and found out that we actually have some as well. I feel smarter now, thanks Road Guy Rob.
I used to drive a semi and any momentum I could have had was gone. They do take longer to accelerate and will hold up traffic on the ramp as well thus creating a platoon. The biggest problem I have seen is people just don't know how to properly merge into traffic. The idea is you increase your speed to match the speed of traffic on the freeway so you can smoothly change lanes thus the guys on the freeway don't have to brake to let you in. This brings me back to the trucks, when they have to stop, now they can't regain the speed necessary to merge properly, the acceleration zone is often way to short. Just one more point, in the simulation shown, the big truck had the same acceleration of car. Bad sim data makes for a bad simulation.
5:40 am and here I am watching a video about red lights. What a time to be alive.
5:08 AM here 😳
seems we all like to watch this in the morning, 05h58 here and I'm now late for work 🤣
5:23 AM and I have classes at 9. wish me luck folks
Don't drop your papers
Squeeze those papers.
This guy will literally trick you into LEARNING traffic history and rules while being entertaining as hell. Great job man!
This is QUALITY content
He is the best!!!!
What _kind_ of quality?
Agreed!
QuAlItY CoNtEnT Keepo
6:06 “it’s like an accordion...”
Caption: “Audio muted for your safety”
Lolololololololol so subtle and brilliant!
Accordion music isn't that bad.
Can't stop laughing!!
That's why I love these videos over a talk show rant. I've actually learned the reasons behind the meters and traffic flow rather than just be upset with traffic.
So the ramps are working out well for you, then?
Think for yourself. Now traffic has to slow down because the new cars are trying to merge while accelerating from 0-60.
They should add more lanes instead of intentionally forcing you to stop at a DAMN RED LIGHT ON THE HIGHWAY.
@@hxhdfjifzirstc894 Adding more lanes every time you have traffic problems is how you end up with the I-10 in Houston.
And as said in the video, these have been demonstrated to work. There are a lot of things in urban design that don't make sense intuitively.
@@hxhdfjifzirstc894 except you aren't stopping ON the freeway. You are stopping at the entrance just before actually being on the freeway.
@@hxhdfjifzirstc894 I've never seen traffic going 60 mph when the ramp lights are activated. If the density is high enough to turn on ramp signals, traffic flow is at 30 mph or less. Plus, entering vehicles are able to pick a place to merge and zipper in much safer when not having to account for the merging ramp lanes. The data tells me that ramps are working out for all of us. Oh, wait, I didn't notice your all caps and expletive, of course you're correct, my mistake.
The biggest problem with ramp meters is how they conflict with many people's views of how a highway on ramp is supposed to work. It takes cars a bit of time to get up to highway speeds because we don't all drive fast corvettes. Common sense dictates that a highway on ramp is the perfect space for this, so having to stop at the end is a bit frustrating for many people. It's also difficult for someone who is unfamiliar with an area to know how much traffic might be expected at any given time, so it might be a surprise to come up to a metered ramp and have to stop when you can't see how much traffic is on the highway due to obstructions. I would really love to see an experiment where they test if many of these frustrations could be solved by putting the meter at the top of the highway ramp, or at least a little closer towards the top, and then creating a longer turn-lane to get onto the highway. Gives people comfort that they can get "Up to speed" (even though there's no speed during a traffic jam) and also gives people a better indication of how much traffic might be on the highway because you can better see the slow traffic in front of you. I have no idea if this is a viable option because I am just a random person and not an engineer of any kind, it's just my observations from occasionally driving through cities with ramp meters and feeling somewhat uncomfortable.
These ramp meters usually only operate when traffic is congested in my area.
Lots of complicated things are counterintuitive.
Traffic engineering is complicated, therefore you sorta have to become an expert to have an idea of what is happening and how everything works. Layman approach just doesn't work
This is a good example of "people only notice when things go wrong."
If everything is running smoothly nobody pays attention.
Rob is a QUALITY ADDITION to the educational video essayists on UA-cam. I don't know of any other transportation science channel with this much charisma
Rob reminds me of an early 2000s educational kids show host in the best way possible
@@Nuclear_Gandhi yes i love his videos a lot compared to some other channels
I call my platoon _“Leeroy Jenkins”_ when we are merging on the highway.
It’s not my fault!!!
@@ShrekSwag At least I have chicken :D
I call mine James Van Der Beek.
The good old reverend himself
Didn't Leeroy get them all killed?
This video deserves a follow-through two years later, because one major question hasn't been addressed:
When does it get the point that a lack of runway distance slows the right lane of the freeway to the point that the staggered platoons do more harm than good for freeway flow?
When I lived in Cali, I wasn't a big fan of the lights, but I really despised when they left only maybe 100-200 feet of runway. Routinely (especially with semis) vehicles would be forced to merge at around 35-40. The right lane of the freeway was terrible, and I tended to just stay in the middle or 2nd lane at all times to avoid the mess.
I love the b-roll footage of San Bernardino and Riverside County.
I always love it when I can recognize the places in the videos, especially when it's around Loma Linda
san bernarghanistan
Same! Recognizing every entrance and exit
I live in the middle of The Ruhr. The busiest motorway here is the A40. It is practically the most important motorway in the entire area. It passes through all of the Ruhr, connects all major cities and goes all the way to the Dutch border. If the A40 is deadlocked, nobody gets anywhere any time soon. Traffic lights on the ramps have indeed improved things here. Sure, traffic jams still do happen. But compared to before the traffic lights were a thing it has gotten a lot better.
As someone from Germany, I ask myself how I got here, watching traffic about us roads n stuff.... dude great video, had to subscribe :D
Ramp meters also exists in many European cities..
@@2Fast4Mellow never seen them, not in Germany nor in the Netherlands, Belgium or northern France
Though some quick research shows they do indeed exist in Europe, in Germany and NL at least. Though they don't seem to be as common as in the US
@@vnixned2 just looked it up myself. There was even an EU funded research project called EURAMP
@@vnixned2 In The Netherlands they are called '(toerit) doseer installaties' and you often find them on onramp of highways that have a high frequency of traffic jams. They usully have a sub sign that reads 'bij groen 1 auto'. I had to do some searching on Google Maps, but I found one of the A28 onramp of 'De uithof': www.google.com/maps/@52.0922308,5.1945102,3a,75y,92.68h,85.5t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sTzWm8EiDNFtcWkdrgv54AA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
In Germany they are called zuflussregelungsanlage and can be found near Duisburg, Dordmund and Oberhaussen. At least that is where I spotted them before I migrated to the US in 2009.
Me: I wonder if he's going to mention how ramp meters were first used in Minneapolis
Rob: Nah, I'm gonna do a whole VIDEO on Minneapolis ramp meters!
Dude I was wondering the same thing lol.
growing up in the twin cities, i remember family members coming in from out of town thinking stop lights on the freeway ramps was the craziest thing they'd ever seen.
12:08 The peaks are sharper both at the onset and end of rush hour. This explains why departing 5 minutes later can make such a big difference.
We have a freeway entrance near me with a fairly short on ramp. It is not easy to merge. Inevitably someone will panic and stop just before merging leaving them with no space to get up to speed. This also forces everyone behind them to stop so even when they do get in, the next person has the same problem and now there is traffic on the on ramp. A few people have figured out that by waiting a few hundred feet back for the traffic to clear they can leave room to get up to speed and restart the flow. This is starting to catch on but it leads to people who don't understand absolutely loosing their minds that the car in front of them doesn't move up when there is a gap. They could really use one of these lights here. Ideally with a sensor that makes it red if traffic is detected stopped ahead.
you should do a video on how building more lanes affects traffic
true
that is why Ontario Hwy 401, which is the busiest freeway in North America uses collector lanes and express lanes.
@@croissantdiet7513 yep especially considering whenever a road has traffic problems the most popular suggestion is to build more lanes, when that just induces more demand to use that road and can make little difference.
ON-402 does too lol
He already has.
I don't know if this happens everywhere else, but I get this a lot in Portland. The traffic on the freeway is already crap, and the meter is on, but no one is moving because the cars trying to merge onto the freeway can't because the flow is stopped or nearly stopped. So the line on the ramp backs up through the meter, and I'm sitting there at the meter counting the green lights that WOULD have allowed me to go IF it weren't for the line of stopped cars in front of me. Every. Friggin. Day.
Colorado Springs has recently installed ramp meters on the I-25, and so many people complained. CDOT had to send everyone a little pamphlet to explain how and why they work, and this video was very similar to it. You are such an awesome video creator, I’m surprised you don’t work PR at some big company!
Reality trumps theory.
If they worked, YOU WOULDN'T NEED A PAMPHLET. Or a video.
Start thinking for yourself. Traffic slows down the instant the meters switch on.
@@hxhdfjifzirstc894 no, it's the difference between individual and global optimization, like "tragedy of the commons". There are situations where making something 5% worse for 50% of people makes something 20% better for everyone.
It feels bad when you are in the 50%. If *you* didn't have to sit in line, you'd be home 5 minutes sooner. But if *nobody* sat in line, it'd take 20 minutes longer to get home.
Yes, they are there because people are clueless on how to drive in the first place.
@@PsRohrbaugh eh, we don't have this in most of the Northeast. Probably because we drive aggressively and don't have time for people who don't understand the rules of the road. For those that want to merge, they need to find a way to blend in as they do not have the right of way. If you are timid, you'll get honked at like crazy. Those that hit the brakes in the slow lane to allow someone to merge will get honked at like crazy. Those in the slow lane may ease off the gas slightly to create a pocket and the one merging needs to get up to speed to merge effectively. Maybe in the West and South people use their kindness to override any sort of proper driving order and they think we are rude. But, again, we don't have these wonderful "aids" that other parts of the country have. Woe is us...
Was that really a year ago?
I really appreciate this breakdown showing how city planners can optimize traffic. But I can't help but watch this and think that expanding light rail makes more sense. We design and build our freeways to operate at max capacity for a couple hours a day. Then they are underutilized for 18-20 hours a day. Plus the entire weekend. They are designed around a volume they only see 12% of the time. A light rail could fix this by adding more trails during peak times. And coupled with the urban highways mass transit would level off the peaks allowing a smaller highway to spend more time at peak capacity without being overloaded. Also seems easy for a city to have special services during sporting events, concerts, and other events that would shock the system.
I would love to see a breakdown of how mass transit could be used to delay or flat-out replace the need for a freeway expansion. Keep up the good work.
this channel is criminally underrated. You deserve more subs.
This channel is criminally overrated. You deserve less subs.
A year later IT STILL IS
As a truck driver, I prefer having these instead of 20 cars merging at once. I can't always get over for the cars, so having fewer cars merging is much safer.
Live it when people don't know how to merge into a highway. Trying to merge 20 under the speed limit of the freeway forcing everyone to brake behind them.
Unfortunately the lights on the ram make it worse becuase it conditions these drives to the idea they should be merging at 20mph.
Best I have seen was a ramp with signs literally saying to speed up and merge lol.
I’ve actually pulled over on the shoulder of an onramp and waited for that a$$hole to get a mile up the road so I could actually get up to a proper speed before merging and not die getting on the freeway.
@@jefffinkbonner9551 Same, except it was to drive past him... he was also too stupid to know that during rush hour the shoulders are extra lanes that start on that exit.
The problem is that there's not enough ramp after the meter. You either have to completely floor it or drive a completely overpowered vehicle in order to get to up to that speed of traffic after being completely stopped. If the ramp was longer after the meter, it wouldn't happen.
@@AlexandarHullRichter that's what happens when the meters were designed and installed after the original highway project - onramps have meters installed, but aren't lengthened because that costs a lot of money.
HOW are all these SUCH high production value?! Feels like I'm watching a damn documentary I'm hooked
Another great video Rob!! 🤙🏼
😭
another bad video Rob!! 🤢
Lol wierd yo see yiu here claw boss
I watch you!
First I see you on a weird TikTok and now a YT video, what’s next the same school bus?
Love it! I went to college for Civil Engineering, and my focus area was transportation engineering. I had a professor who had a lot of involvement with MNDOT and the ramp metering system in the Twin Cities.
In his classes, we made extensive use of TICAS to gather typical data and PTV Vissim to do traffic modeling, including an awful lot of study into ramp meters, using real data and existing roads.
This totally brought me back to those days, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
You did a much better job presenting the material than that professor did - thank you!
Wow, this is cool and makes me want to study harder since I'm doing the exact same thing since now I'm about to be in my junior year major courses😂🙌🏾 my local cities in the suburbs of Atlanta are finally getting metered lights since traffic is abismal
Ugggh mn is the worst lol. I’m sure I am wrong but I thought I remember hearing MN is one of the only remaining states that has this? I’m sure they others but it doesn’t seem to popular. Wonder if more are being added in other states now. I can not recall seeing too many in the other states I have drove through. Interesting
@@chozen_1309 there in Atlanta.
I can tell alot of effort goes into these videos and the end result is amazing, keep up the good work.
5:50 - a "simple" lane change
_highlights a car changing two lanes at once to reach the off-ramp_
This channel definitely deserves more than 100k subscribers. C’mon people, let’s get this channel to a 100k subs.
I'm a picky viewer but I subbed after this one!!
I agree 100%, just subbed today! This guy is interesting, informative, has high production value, and covers unique topics. I'm surprised he doesn't have more subscribers.
Not even american never been there but I still watch and subscribe anyways
My problem with the meters have always been how much they slow down semi trucks. They always have hard enough time getting up to speed anyway, but these meters reduce their on-ramp even more and causing backups on the freeway.
2 seconds following distance? *laughs in 18 wheeler*
All cars use your "Safety Zone" as their safety zone, which actually makes them your cushioned stop.
I remember when Minnesota meters were turned off and my memory is that traffic actually flowed better as there was no slow moving cars coming from a stop so close to the freeways. My memory is also there was a state budget shut down which is why the meters were really shut down. These days half the people just ignore the meter and drive right past them.
So many in N. CA are feet from the merge point. Sure let me get up to speed in 2.3 seconds in my JETTA.
This guy deserves a lot more followers! The production quality and content is just top notch!
I live in a city with no ramp meters (Orlando). I've only encountered them as a tourist, and my main issues is with on-ramps that give you insufficient distance to get up to the speed of highway traffic. When you are in a vehicle with a 15-25+ second 0-60 time, you have to stand on the gas and pray there will be an opening for you to cut someone off, because there isn't enough room for you to slow back down on the ramp. Not everyone drives a modern passenger vehicle with good acceleration. I drive a cargo van, and am blown away by how sporty my friend's civic is (with the base model engine).
Orlando had ramp meters now
I really like these videos. Breaking down complex systems in a way that an 8 year old could understand them but without being patronizing
A note about the Minneapolis studies - from a resident. Minneapolis had the system for many decades with the signals stopping traffic most of the time and a huge dissatisfaction with the long delays when the highways were flowing fast.
The highway department shut down the system and started over, doing studies about traffic flow and redesign the light strategy to limit the lights to operate when there was clear advantage to them.
Indeed, MnDOT made it quite a bit better after. Meters had their start and stop times adjusted, some were shut off where traffic flowed _better_ without them, and the overall system controlling them was made smarter.
Incidentally, don't blow through one of our ramp meters when one is red with nobody waiting -- unless maybe you're in a truck that needs the extra acceleration distance. Wait for a green; you'll have an easier time merging into traffic. (The meter will stay red when a clump of heavier traffic is going by, and turn green when it thins out a little.)
Nice video, Rob! This is an example of a city doing ramp metering right. You were able to catch the meters down during times that they should be running (because of low density). Other cities who put their meters on timers so that they are on from 6am to 9am and from 3pm to 6pm are doing it wrong. You end up at a meter waiting in a queue while the freeway is empty - this is frustrating! It's like the current school zone lights that are flashing while school is out - and a camera van in the school zone catching speeders. Not quite as intended, and frustrating.
I know I'm going urbanist circlejerk on a road video but like
people's reaction to these things really highlights the american public's perception of transit, travel, and public services
people don't want to sacrifice the possibility of getting there faster, even if everyone on average will get there slower
even if obviously that's not how statistics work and any indivitual will almost always get there slower. truly, we are committed to our ideals
WOW! Super job, Rob! An observation: Caltrans seems to have implemented *very* sophisticated metering control systems. It is possible that the benefits of metering turn into detriments if the metering control isn't *just so* (e.g. dumb timers, or some perverse interaction between model functions in the computerized control network)?
This made me *much* better understand living through the meters-off experiment in Minneapolis/St. Paul. Gov. Ventura (the former WWE wrestler, who "ain't got time to bleed") was a big proponent of turning the meters off. At the time I figured, "Yeah! Shut these nuisances down, man!" But, now I see that doing so only made things worse! Brilliant! (also: the state legislature *really* hated Ventura, so too bad they didn't brand his name all over the experiment, so that when it failed, some guy at MNDoT (or, *you* as their media consultant) could show how much of a brainlet Mr. Ventura was---aside: while he didn't always have the best ideas, I'd vote for Ventura again, if he ever returned to Minnesota from his retirement home in Mexico).
This is one of the most niche channels on UA-cam and I love every second of it! I love when my super specific and weird nerdiness collides with someone else's! :)
8:40 is exactly how the stupid average motorist defeats the best planning. A vehicle easily capable of adjusting speed to smoothly merge into a large gap instead creates a conflict by entering the freeway at a location occupied by an existing traveler.
I love the drivers who choose not to accelerate (when traffic is free flowing) and feel it's perfectly ok to merge onto the freeway at 30 MPH, slowing the line of traffic on the on-ramp as well as causing needless merging and slowing on the main line.
Ramp meters do not help either. It takes much more effort to speed up from 0 then say 40
@@wotm8870 My 72 hp mirage have no issue dragging itself to 40 mph onto NY I495, like no sweat, 3000 rpm max. Your car has to do better than mine.
If you are 10 mph below the speed limit, or traffic flow (which ever is slower), other cars will be more inclined to just overtake you than slow down for you.
I am trying to encourage more people 1) when driving on right lanes , to be ready to give way to mergers and 2) when merging, to drive fast and follow the traffic flow and not to break it (be sure the ramp is sufficiently long and provides a clear sight of view of the traffic).
Don't take it as an offense.
This is the main issue that ramp meters are made to address! Still, some drivers are gonna go "Durr Hurrrrr".
@@navyguyhm3 they slow everything down. bunch of rookies who need to go to traffic school. They are often nervous to do 3 things at a time. 1) Accelerate 2) Find a spot over your left shoulder 3) Make sure you dont hit the wall on the right or go off the road.
I lived through the MN ramp meter experiment. I was hoping you were going to mention it here and I'm nerdily excited that you're doing a whole video on it!
This guy is a great voice great personality to do what he's doing. I love that he films a lot of this stuff right here in the Inland empire.
There are a few I ignore in San Diego County because they should not be on. In particular Palomar Airport Road's offramp is under reconstruction, and it's down to 1 lane. People also tend to not read the 2 per light sign. Palomar Airport Road is the busiest road in North County, yet it is metered worse than all the other roads connected to the highway right now. As a result, it backs up several miles in the morning and afternoon which causes a lot of street incidents.
I also generally ignore them on a motorcycle because 3/4th the time the censor does not detect my motorcycle. About 2/3rds of San Diego Counties sensors do not detect motorcycles, and 1/10th are completely broken.
This reminds me of the movie quote “You are me density” lol.
Why don't you make like a tree and get out of here! What are you chicken?
Hahaha
I try to merge at 80 to 140MPH (depends on what I'm driving and length of on-ramp). There is no speed limit on " on-ramps". The faster I merge, people tend to clear a space, or at 90MPH plus, I can find an empty space to safely merge. All cars can decelerate much faster than they can accelerate, so slowing down to fit in to a space is easy. Once on the freeway, I normally cruse at 50 to 60 in the left lane, or just a bit slower than other traffic.
Bruh imagine if Americans knew how to use lanes properly too
Tips for Americans that we use:
-Use the right lane most of the time, left lane is for overtaking.
-When you're on the highway and before reaching an on-ramp move to the left lane to make it easier for the cars coming in.
-Allways keep at the least 20 to 30 meters or more safe distance between cars depending on your speed.
-Dont just look to the car in front of you, try to look beyond him to be ready if something happens and you have to brake.
-Dont just look at your mirrors, use your head to check the blind spot when changing lanes.
-Before reaching slow traffic or a traffic jam, or suddenly braking turn on your hazard lights to warn drivers behind you..
-Dont stay in someone else's blind spot, move out fast when you're in that position.
Bonus tips:
-Use the left blinker when you're on the left lane and want to overtake the car in front of you, so he knows to move over to the right lane.
-Use the hazard lights blinking once or twice to thank someone behind you.
-Use the hazard lights to warn other drivers of cops and radar
-
@@ElySky95 umm merging traffic is responsible for merging safely not the main traffics job to move over left...
@@truckercowboyed2638 You don't have to move to the left it's a matter of courtesy, but as long as you can do it safely, you can do so to help other people out and avoid traffic jams on the on-ramp, and in smaller countries it helps a lot, but if you're a selfish lazy person just keep going as you wish.
@@ElySky95 we flash out high beams here for that, using a left signal would probably just confuse someone or they'll just think you left it on by mistake
@@plingket we also so that here, the left signal is just one more hint
Houston added these (or at least started using them) a little while back near where I work... with how close the next exit is and then the interstate exchange so close it certainly doesn't feel like it does anything... some days the red to green is less than a second, just flashes back and forth it seems.
as a motorcyclist I would be really interested in a video seeing the impact of motorcycles in lane filtering and lane splitting... and how the size volume would impact traffic (being that average motorcycle is 1/2 the length of the average car and obviously much narrower...)
Funny rant in the beginning although I feel like I am hearing the term "surface streets" for the first time maybe because I have been living in this country for only over a decade ?
Yeah, it's an American thing.
Because freeways typically travel over ot under cross streets, we lazily call city streets "surface streets" (because they are on the surface -- neither elevated nor depressed).
It's kinda of a California thing, I didn't realize till after I left.
I think because in these big urban centers, freeways are often below grade or elevated.
@@davidgutierrez-aguirre4807 store vs market. Are these terms mutuality exclusive where you speak English? Is a side streets also a surface street, or is a side street more representative of a residential street not intended for through traffic? Wtf is a thoroughfare? Lol cheers from Los Angeles
@@ossumopossum
As long as it's not elevated or depressed, it's a surface street. But the term is usually used in conjunction with roads near highways that change elevation.
@@ossumopossum
And thoroughfare is just a busy, main street.
Synonymous with avenue, boulevard, arterial, parkway or any main street with a lot of vehicle traffic.
I'm from California. Southern California. Oceanside, California to be right. I wanna say this. Does Ramp Meters or Ramp Signals work? Yes, they do work. When they where brought into California in the 1980s, some people liked them and others hated them. Some say they are confusing and aren't fair. That is in the big cities of Los Angeles and San Diego. A great old 20th century idea that is going on strong. Removing them is just pure stupidity. Good video by the way.
2020 my favorite new channel on youtube. Keep up the great work.
Here in Colorado those meters don't work because both the left lane and the right lane lights change at the same time. I just run the light while the car in the other lane is stopped which makes the most sense.
This is your best one yet Rob, informative and entertaining with an excellent understanding of the 4 dimensional puzzle that is traffic flow on freeways.
You've earned the sub
Rob - That's not Ohm's Law. That's the Power Law. *Ohm's Law is Current = Voltage / Resistance.*
Good video. Finally someone explains it's not about breaking up the traffic to prevent traffic jams (obviously doesn't work in LA) but make them shorter when they inevitably happen (your last graph was the winner). This actual data I can appreciate rather than people just making dogmatic claims that it works and is worth it.
Love ramp meters. Learning to drive in LA, they were like little legal drag strips 😂😂😂
Except 99 percent of the time you are stuck behind grandma's buick so you can't.
@@TigerWon 💯
Especially if you drive a Tesla! :-)
lol thats great thinking
I gotta say yes, they definitely work. I was getting on I-405 in the San Fernando Valley at 9am weekdays, and for some reason the ramp meters were off, despite it still being morning rush-hour. The right-hand lanes of the 405 ground to a near-standstill, making it difficult for cars to get on the freeway, and which led to traffic backing-up all the way onto the street, with several cars blocking the intersections regularly. IDK if the meters were just broken, or LADOT was doing a similar experiment as Minnesota, but if they were experimenting, that'd be ridiculous! We already knew the results!
The production quality of your videos is absolutely nuts. Great work!
Ramp lights are a Band Aid to cover up faulty freeway construction. For instance, there's a red light on a 65 mph freeway mornings on State Route 125 southbound in La Mesa, California. After the signal, 2 lanes merge into one. The actual ramp is coming from I-8 westbound but has no signal. The I-8 ramp to 94 was built before the continuation of 125 was built. There's always a slowdown for 3 miles as one of the I-8 ramp lanes ends, and until the intersections with 94 east using ramps from streets. The whole thing's a giant mess. There's plenty of room to rebuild it with two proper interchanges and a wider freeway between SR 94 and I-8, and the lane painting ignores wide concrete lanes already there. Oh yeah, the ramp from I-8 eastbound to 125 northbound isn't one sweeping curve -- it consists of 2 different curves, so you have to turn the steering wheel halfway through the ramp. Whoever designed this should be sentenced to driving on it 16 hours a day.
Great engineering explanation I've been curious to learn about! I'm still amazed at how few cars a freeway moves per hour compared to trains and other modes, yet we still give so much space and money to building out "one more lane." Innovations like these help us better utilize the lanes we already have, and hopefully will free up resources to build more efficient solutions to transit.
just one more lane bro and we'll fix traffic. Just one more lane, one more lane and we can fix it
We have metered ramps in Houston, but no one stops, not even me lol. Even the cops will honk at you if you stop, no one utilizes it as intended.
1. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ROAD GUY ROB VIDEO
2. Can you find out why they don't seem to use yellow flashing arrows for California's Left Turn arrows? Working night shifts, I will wait at an empty red light waiting for a green arrow for minutes, when a flashing yellow left turn arrow back in NY would've just let me go.
Good idea. I'll put it on my pitch board. (Wish I was quicker making videos so I go get through more topics more quickly)
@@RoadGuyRob The world would be better with 5 Road Guy Robs so we could get 5 videos in the time it takes to make one.
That being said, I can be patient for the great content you're able to provide :)
Depends on if there is a need check out this video ua-cam.com/video/dUQbuLzkViw/v-deo.html as a professional I don’t like permissive turns (the flashing yellow denotes that clearly instead of none shown) but with volumes and clear signals (in combination with green - protected left turns- and red arrows) along with enough 3E’s = engineering, education, enforcement- it should work
It's an interesting video, but there are other considerations a computer should probably take, in addition to just 1600 cars per hour. There's an on ramp meter on I-15 South at Foothill Blvd in the Inland Empire, and the signal actually is more often at fault for slowing freeway traffic. Cars entering at 25mph affect the freeway much more than cars entering at 55. It's not always a perfect system everywhere.
😂 Sticking up for all the perfectly lovely Karens out there 👍🏆
You literally have such a passion for this, you can see it, and this is why I love watching these
The graphs at the end were very insightful.
This channel feels like a bunch of news/educational videos I'd watch in middle school.
As a truck driver (18-wheeler) I hate these things! People keep cutting you off and stealing your green. I make it a special rule just to ignore them.
I think commercial vehicles should be exempt from the metering lights honestly
As demonstrated at 08:57 - gotta love it when cars have no respect for trucks
Houston has on-ramp meters, but they don't bother turning them on anymore. Everyone just kept blowing right past them.
I find the trade-offs fascinating. I remember the ramp lights in Atlanta back in the 70s. Then they went away. Now they're back. Is interesting to me as what the meter does most is (attempt) to force a gap between cars which allows for smoother merging. (Imagine if we could do the same on the main lane). On the flip side, we also want to maximize the cars through the light back on the side road, so we create multiple turn lanes. And merge them on the ramp. Which increases density on the ramp, the last of which happens right before hitting the freeway. So, when the meters *are* on, they help undo that effect. When they're of though, it's nuts at the ramp.
I believe some ramps address this with signs saying something like "form two lanes when meters are active" -- they're wide enough to fit two lanes, but marked as one lane for off-peak traffic.
In theory it might work in some rural area but the reality is it has never worked in places like Los angeles and Orange county. Once the light turns green so many people slow the traffic down even more trying to get all the way across to the left lane as fast as possible. And in the shortest distance
1:33 My name is Hector and that caught me really off guard lol
Would have been funny if said "yes even you hector". I bet would would have been wtf he knows I'm watching him
Some on ramps were not designed for that. Where I grew up in Corte Madera they put meters on the on ramp to 101 and that backs up the main drag in town going over the overpass with everyone waiting for the metering light to go green
John and Ken bitching about freeways on KFI AM640 while you are stuck in traffic is such a Southern California aesthetic hehe
i love it
These are not new - If memory serves me correctly, I first saw these in Fort Worth, Texas in 1976 when I was working on the FB-111 program at General Dynamics. They were quite effective in dealing with heavy "freeway" "mixmaster" rush hour traffic in those days.
Great graphics and effects on this one!
I understand the math and logic behind it, but the problem disappears with an exit/entrance lane. I don't know exactally what they are called, but the lanes that go from exit to exit, and stretch for the half mile or mile between exits. Those allow much more traffic to flow through then ramp meters ever will. Having an on ramp merge into the third lane of traffic just didn't work before the meter, and won't work with the meter either. Not to mention a lot of places don't have the room for these meters, and they get clogged very easily all the way back to the in town traffic, so then they make 3 or 4 really narrow lanes for the meter which just costs money, and messed up traffic for a couple weeks. Sure they work in some scenarios, but it seems most of them are poorly placed, or they should have used the money on another road improvement
The ramp meter at the 605N/210E is an interesting one and it's on all the time at evening rush hour. That ramp traffic merges into the far right lane which is also interesting. This could make a good video about 'reducing conflicts' and why specifically in California they have so many lanes that just close or merge suddenly with limited-to-no signage. There are a lot of spots around here that the signage is quite frankly terrible and the traffic is totally mismanaged (57S->60W->57S).
Sins of past decades- easier to fix then, now you would have to wait for a big project, data from a bunch of non-fatal collisions, or a lawsuit due to fatal collision... or could be stolen signs or faded stripes. Do report those into Caltrans Maintenance Service Request csr.dot.ca.gov/index.php/Msrsubmit/
They tried this in Detroit back in the nineties. It doesn't work. Too many accidents because people assumed they were intended to eliminate the need to still merge at traffic speed. Many cars entered driving way to slow. There was also a ton of rear end collisions at the lights. Myself, if I get stopped by one of these I am balls out racing to the bottom of the ramp when it changes to make up time I was forced to wait for the damn signal. The program was shut down within the year it was introduced. I'd rather sit in traffic than wait to get into traffic. These are almost as bad as the traffic circles I avoid by using secondary roads to make normal turns.
OMG, though I'm not an American, I was wondering WHY THERE IS A SIGNAL ON THE RAMP... Your video described the reason very easy. Thank you :)
They aren't just in the USA, we have them in the UK on some motorway junctions
@@dasy2k1 yes they are effective
they allow the main to keep full without over loading the next junction.
NBA Live 95 in DOS was my childhood, can't believe I saw it in a Road Guy Rob video. 😂
You are to yield when you are merging on the highway - you do not stop on the highway. Driver Ed 101.
Sounds good in theory. But in practice, not every minute of every day has the same traffic. Timed ramp lights assume a constant and steady flow, hence releasing cars ALMOST ALWAYS at the wrong rate for maximum efficiency. There's nothing more frustrating than driving up a ramp, observing a fast-moving freeway flow, but being forced to stop because the stupid light was stuck in the wrong cycle. Furthermore, ramps were designed so incoming cars could merge by speeding up and matching speeds just before the merge point. Putting a stop light at that point defeats the purpose of the merging concept. It's sorta like the opposite of a roundabout, which converts crossing motions to merging ones. A ramp stoplight converts smooth merging motions to jerky stop & go's.
I don’t think you could have a high enough speed to reach peak density on I-94 in Montana lol.
The production quality of this is outstanding. Videos like these are why I love UA-cam.
I did not know those yellow lights on the meters were ever used!! Huh! I thought it was red and green only. Now my goal is to see one in action.
When I was a kid I always wondered that too. It wasn't until I had my license several years that I saw one actually work.
Here in the Twin Cities, the ramp meters _continuously_ flash yellow when not in use, reminding you there's a functioning ramp meter there. There's also a _very short_ yellow (not even half a second?) after each one-car-per-green, so they _never_ go directly from green to red.
This is why I love YT. Keep teaching us about traffic engineering!
And Karen - who is really nice 😂 😂
Ha. I didn't catch that.
She would also like to speak to the manager!
Rewatching this again a few years later after you posted the short about it, still one of my favorite RGR videos. Probably because I watched the video and then a few days later happened to see a ramp meter for the first time.
Here's a good question for you, I live in California too, and I encounter these freeway stop lights all the time. However I've noticed that there's a red light on the other side of the red green freeway entrance lights. But like, what purpose do they serve? They don't change color or turn off if the other light is green, it's just a solid single red light. However, I can't think of the situation where anyone is ever going to see them? So what are they used for?
Good question. Should have included.
The signal on the back is red when the light is red for drivers. It turns off during greens. This lets CHP officers sitting beyond the meter know if a driver ran a red light.
i was wondering that too! from what i remember they only show red when the actual signal is red too. wikipedia says this is for the highway patrol to park further down the highway and spot anyone who’s running a red
@nick fifteen. It's for CHP to be able to tell if a person went through on a red meter or not. If a car goes through and the solid red light is on, the CHP officer will know that they illegally went through it. Hope this helps
Good call
Chp
Melbourne Australia has installed ramp meters on much of the urban freeway network including the Monash, West Gate, Eastern Tullamarine Freeways and the M80 Ring Road. The typical arrangement has one car per green with two lanes at the on ramp allowing a pair of vehicles to enter each time, and the signals here go green-amber-red rather than green to red. When the system first activates or shuts down the signals flash amber for a short period with electronic warning signs before the freeway entrances warning drivers that the signals are on.
Here in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis - St Paul, Minnesota, US), the ramp meters go green-yellow-red too -- with a _very short_ yellow, since they're only letting cars through one at a time. They also continuously flash yellow ("proceed with caution") when _not_ in use, typically anytime outside of weekday rush hours. And at the beginning of their rush-hour cycling, they transition to solid green for a bit _before_ they start stopping ramp traffic.
Also, too many people just run them when they're red with nobody waiting. I never do, because a.) short of a malfunction or a _real_ emergency, I'm not going to blatantly, intentionally run a red light; b.) I understand what they're doing to improve traffic; and c.) the system is smart enough to react to traffic conditions, and doesn't keep you at red for no reason. If it's _staying_ red, there's probably a clump of heavy traffic in the main lanes, and I'm more likely to find a gap to safely merge into if I wait for a green.
Seems like a lot of work simply to avoid teaching people how to merge.
At first I was very sceptical about this channel as it's literally about roads and cars as a mode of transport is inefficient. But I appreciate the traffic calming video, the aspects of nature being destroyed in suburbanisation and the efficiency needed. Also the rapid bus video was great. It's obviously still car leaning but gives alternatives a fair chance and room for discussion. So keep up the work.
"Karen, who's actually really nice..." 🤣🤣🤣
Interesting stuff really. I never saw those red lights on any freeway ramp here in germany. I was curious about them and found out that we actually have some as well. I feel smarter now, thanks Road Guy Rob.
fascinating video
Most underrated channel on youtube.
I used to drive a semi and any momentum I could have had was gone. They do take longer to accelerate and will hold up traffic on the ramp as well thus creating a platoon. The biggest problem I have seen is people just don't know how to properly merge into traffic. The idea is you increase your speed to match the speed of traffic on the freeway so you can smoothly change lanes thus the guys on the freeway don't have to brake to let you in. This brings me back to the trucks, when they have to stop, now they can't regain the speed necessary to merge properly, the acceleration zone is often way to short. Just one more point, in the simulation shown, the big truck had the same acceleration of car. Bad sim data makes for a bad simulation.
I'm glad your channel is seeing some growth! the content is absolutely worth people's time and it's cool to see these videos gain traction.
As a truck driver I approve this method because people don’t know how to merge
It's a lot harder to merge while trying to do 0-60.
Oh my the stress from worrying about every single time a car merges while you drive past an on ramp...