Private car path explorer has multiple equilibria

[Matthew]

This might be the wrong forum. Maybe it's a bug. Maybe it's unavoidable. Maybe it's one of those things where subjective observations are wrong.

But it appears from Bridgewater-Brunel that the private car path explorer has multiple equilibria and switches between them frequently. I almost want to say 'violently'! Every time I join, the flows of traffic have jumped from one route to another. One day a motorway is completely jammed northbound and empty southbound. The next day it's the reverse. The day after it's completely empty. This makes it very difficult to set traffic lights correctly, plan bus routes, and generally avoid gridlock.

Any thoughts on what causes this and how we can deal with it?

[freddyhayward]

Any thoughts on what causes this and how we can deal with it?

James and I had an in-game discussion about this a while ago. Essentially, it is caused by routes reacting to changes in congestion. The proposed solution is to lengthen the period over which congestion is recorded and averaged to two routing cycles rather than two months.