Via Slashdot: Fixing the unfairness of TCP congestion control
A nice article on the logic behind traffic management on the internet. If only we transportation engineers could simply drop packets (analogous to a helicopter vaporizing cars that were in queue?) The problem of course is that bandwidth use is not charged at marginal cost when it is in the congesting region, leading to overconsumption. The issue is the transaction costs associated with implementing a charging regime.
Day: 2008-03-24
Speed limits for mode shifts
From the Telegraph:
15mph speed limit to force people out of cars
The UK is planning a series of 15 new “eco-towns”. As part of their design, a 15mph (Britain is not consistently metric) speed limit in the heart of these new towns hopes to discourage auto use, in stark contrast to the older new towns (Stevanage to Milton Keynes) which made freeflowing traffic a centerpiece.
Too much compliance
From Freakonomics: Your City Needs You to Blow Through Red Lights
Apparently too much enforcement induces too much compliance, so there is not enough revenue to pay for the enforcement. There must be an equilibrium between revenue and compliance.
David Levinson, Transportist 