Accordion effect

In

of the system in which it occurs.

In traffic

The accordion effect in road traffic refers to the typical decelerations and accelerations of a vehicle when the vehicle in front decelerates and accelerates. These fluctuations in speed propagate backwards and typically get bigger and bigger further down the line, resulting in reduced throughput of road traffic. For this reason, the Norwegian Public Roads Administration recommends that each driver should try to follow the accelerations of the vehicle in front closely, and keeping a steady gap that is neither too small or large.^[1] Too small gaps and sudden braking can lead to rear ending.^{[citation needed]}

In motorsports

In the Formula One 2020 Tuscan Grand Prix, an accordion effect after the restart under the safety car caused five of the last cars in the field to crash.^[2] Data analysis of the crash showed that each consecutive driver accelerated faster and faster, and also that each consecutive driver braked later and later.^[3]

See also

• Bus bunching
• Wavelength
• Doppler effect
• Traffic wave

References

• SA Nobe, FY Wang - PROC IEEE INT CONF SYST MAN CYBERN, 2001 - ieeexplore.ieee.org
• Y. Sugiyama1, M. Fukui, M. Kikuchi, K. Hasebe, A. Nakayama, K. Nishinari, S. Tadaki and S. Yukawa, "Traffic jams without bottlenecks-experimental evidence for the physical mechanism of the formation of a jam", New Journal of Physics '10' (2008), p. 033001,
  doi:10.1088/1367-2630/10/3/033001, url:http://iopscience.iop.org/1367-2630/10/3/033001/fulltext/

External links

• Accordion Effect - Tabroot