FORMULA TO PREDICT PHANTOM TRAFFIC JAMS

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have devised a model that can predict traffic jams.They have come up with a formula of phantom jams,based on the equations that describe detonation waves caused by explosions.

Phantom jams are those that appear for no apparent reason,in the absense of an accident or roadworks.

In high - density traffic,even a small disturbance,such as a driver braking too hard,becomes amplified as the cars behind react more strongly.The mathematicians call such phantom jams 'jamitons'.

Aslan Kasimov,a lecturer at MIT's Department of Mathematics,and the team found that the jamitons behave like detonation waves in that they have a 'sonic point',a sort of bottleneck,which seperates the traffic flow into upstream and downstream areas.

The MIT team said "Variables such as traffic speed and traffic density are used to calculate the conditions under which a jamiton is formed and how fast it will spread."

The mathematical model will not help break up jams once they have formed - drivers will simply have to wait them out.But it will allow civic planners to predict where jams are most likely to occur.