Number 15 - Non-intuitive design patterns

How more traffic can mean less traffic

When designing solutions for complex systems the deployed tools can often be quite counter intuitive. Having a flexible mindset is thus very important in order not to miss good solutions. Let's see some examples!

Example number 1: Traffic in cities. Many mayors, city councils and regional boards often face complaints regarding traffic in their areas. The straightforward solutions often involve making more lanes in the cities to increase capacity or to ban cars at certain times or under certain conditions to decrease load. In some cases however, where the main source of traffic was understood to be drivers willing to drive through the city and not to it, the solution was to invest in big highways encircling the city (lord of the rings anyone?). Of course, offering the high-way to drivers across the country might mean more people will drive through here than usual. The gamble is that these drivers will indeed not spill-over to the city network too. So, the solution to having less traffic in the city might be to increase traffic *close* to the city.

Example number 2: Grounding in electrical circuits. Electrical engineers and Electro-Magnetic Compatibility (EMC) experts often face a similar problem altogether. When designing any electrical network, there will be unwanted current. The straightforward method for avoiding unwanted currents is to isolate source and victim from each other. In practice though, you are often better off accepting that there will be unwanted currents, and subsequently add as many connection points as possible, thus providing an attractive path for unwanted currents to dissipate. Depending on the origins and other properties of the expected unwanted current, either solution could be optimal.

Just something to keep in mind next time you are stuck in traffic 😅 The solution can sometimes involve competing or complementary elements.

P.S.: Thanks for the diligence dear fact checker friend ;)

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