The interview was conducted on Aspen Public Radio, in relation to the new system of bus tracking and traffic light coordination systems being introduced in the town.
Professor Bar-Yam:
"The natural process that spontaneously creates jams was studied. Jams on a highway form spontaneously."
"One of the things that happens is that when a bus gets delayed there are a lot more people that want to get on that bus and because there are more people that want to get on that bus the bus gets even more delayed. That cascades because traffic delays and bus route delays have additional side effects that exacerbate the problem."
This interview aired on November 7th.
Some further reading on the subject:
C. Gershenson, D. A. Rosenblueth, Self-Organizing Traffic Lights at Multiple-Street Intersections, arXiv:1104.2829v1 (2011).
C. Gershenson, Self-Organization Leads to Supraoptimal Performance in Public Transportation Systems, PLoS ONE 6(6): e21469. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0021469 (2011).
