Traffic congestion is a daily phenomenon that costs people a lot of time, is bad for the environment and may even cost some money. There are many obvious causes for traffic congestion, such as the amount of cars, size of the road, situational factors on the road such as accidents etc.(e.g. this blog or (Wiki).
It seems that increasing the capacity of the road capacity is not a solution to the problem, since it only appears to attract more users (Arnott and Small, 1994). Therefore, I was thinking whether there were any other factors that could influence congestion. It is obvious that each car has a human drive (well almost each car). Perhaps, their behavior could likely also play part in causing congestion.
Is there any scientific evidence that behavioral factors (e.g. excessive de- and acceleration or lane switching) may promote/prevent traffic congestion?
References
Arnott, R., & Small, K. (1994). The economics of traffic congestion. American scientist, 446-455.