We’ve all marveled at the stunning choreography of a large flock of birds swirling in the sky, and many of us have observed the same dazzling displays by schools of fish or even swarms of insects. How is it that such large groups can maneuver as a single unit, change direction instantly, and never seem to have “traffic accidents?”
According to biologists, such coordinated movements are collective survival strategies. E Pluribus Unum. But the fact that the creatures involved in such mass movements don’t run into each other or go off course opened a new door for Transportation Studies. Dutch traffic engineer Hans Monderman (1945-2008) is famous for a design approach known as “Shared Space.” “Monderman found that the traffic efficiency and safety of urban streets improved when the street and surrounding public space was redesigned to encourage each person to negotiate their movement directly with others. Shared space designs typically call for removing regulatory traffic control features (such as kerbs, lane markings, signs and lights) and replacing intersections with roundabouts” (Wikipedia).
New Urban News comments: ”Initially, it was believed that the shared-space approach was appropriate only in small communities and those with low traffic volumes. But as the British traffic and urban design consultant Ben Hamilton-Baillie points out, more recent experience has shown that shared-space principles can work in places traversed by 20,000 or more vehicles per day. In West London, shared-space ideas have been successfully applied to Kensington High Street in the Borough of Kensington despite its stream of more than 40,000 vehicles a day.”
Monderman’s shared space concept led to studies of what is now termed “flock traffic navigation” (FTN). FTN is a new approach for solving traffic congestion problems in big cities by applying knowledge about flocks of birds to human transportation. While the concept currently applies to automated cars traveling in unison (“swarm robotics”), it hopes to encompass individual vehicles as well. Just as well. When was the last time you saw a bird exhibit “road rage”?
Editor’s notes: A good example of avian shared space ability can be seen on You Tube, “Starlings at Otmoor”; also see “Birds Of A Feather: The Physics Of Flocks” for an overview of the topic published in the American Institute of Physics.
