I've pondered a similar question: is pulling up right behind the car in front of you the optimal behavior for a red light? What if you could get everyone to leave a large gap (on the order of several car lengths)? Could you increase the number of cars that make it through a light while it's green? Or would it not matter?
Human nature is to pull as far forward as you can, within certain limits at least. But is that actually optimal? If not, with self-driving cars or some other technological assistance, maybe we could increase the efficiency of intersections that use signals.
Sure, you can probably optimize for that, but understand that you’re preventing people from turning on red or getting into the left turn lane in time for the signal to appear this cycle and you’re also trapping people going straight on the other side of the previous intersection.
I suspect it might be good for getting through that intersection faster, but in general I think it’s probably best for all traffic if stopped traffic takes up as little room as possible.
Yeah, if the effect even matters, it wouldn't work well for short blocks.
Even for long blocks, you'd want to figure out that the light will be green for X seconds, which allows Y cars to get through, so only Y cars (and no more) would line up with the required spacing between them, and the ones behind that would pack in more tightly to save space. Then while the light is right, the next Y cars could get themselves into the correct configuration.
Data Transfer allows for instant start/stop so the car can actually stop before the light turns, allowing the cars on the other side to go quicker and go immediately.
In the future, we may not even see self driving cars stopping at red lights (think of all intersections as four way roads)
Human nature is to pull as far forward as you can, within certain limits at least. But is that actually optimal? If not, with self-driving cars or some other technological assistance, maybe we could increase the efficiency of intersections that use signals.