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DIY shockwave traffic jams

Last month we brought you video (below) showing that traffic jams that seemingly appear from nowhere in free-flowing traffic had been recreated on the test track for the first time.One reader was so excited they commented that they intended to head out in their car and try causing one for themselves. But this online traffic simulator lets you make your own shockwave jams without ruining anyone's journey, or causing major pile-ups.Shockwave jams happen when a single driver slows slightly, and that delay becomes magnified into a wave of congestion travelling backwards through the flow of traffic.The video below shows the test-track experiment in Japan. To create your own similar shockwave jam using the simulator, visit this page, and click the "Ring Road" option at the top of the page.The cars and trucks flow around a circular track like the one used in Japan. Pretty soon a shockwave jam emerges, travelling anticlockwise, against the flow of traffic. If you turn up the density of vehicles it happens sooner, and you can create multiple jams.According to the notes that go along with the simulator, the wave is triggered by one of the trucks causing a "mild perturbation", just like a braking driver on a real road.Tom Simonite, online technology reporter