Are we nearly there yet?

Are we nearly there yet?
Jul 10th 2009 From Economist.com
Motorists could learn a thing or two from ants
WITH more Americans than ever economising by driving, rather than flying, to visit friends and family for last weekend’s Independence Day celebrations, the long, winding lines of bumper-to-bumper traffic must have made more than a few turn around and miss the food and fireworks. When stuck in traffic, your correspondent is tempted to compare the competitive nature of motorists (himself included) with the co-operative behaviour of ants. He is intrigued by the way ants manage to avoid traffic jams. The first thing you notice when you watch an ant trail is the way the convoy never comes to a halt, no matter how busy the traffic.
The ants don’t even slow down. As the traffic density builds at junctions where ant trails converge, they continue to maintain the same steady speed as they do on quieter stretches. More intriguing still, they exhibit none of the mutual blocking behaviour found on crowded roads—where motorists prevent others from squeezing in and, in so doing, hinder their own progress as well.
Alamy
There is a world of difference, of course, between ants genetically programmed over millions of years to follow pheromone trails in the best interest of the colony, and motorists constrained to follow the rules of the road, yet determined to demonstrate their free will and to maximise their personal gain. In short, for ants fetching food from a distant source, an efficient transport system is essential for the colony’s survival. For motorists, it is merely a means to get from one place to another while struggling to retain their freedom and individuality.
Yet, despite the differences, your correspondent believes there are lessons motorists can learn from the collective march of ants. For one thing, there is a lot of communication going on between individual ants on a trail, as they broadcast their presence and their intentions chemically to one another. That clearly helps them regulate their distance apart (headway). In so doing, they maintain an optimum speed for a maximum volume of traffic.
One day cars will likewise be able to communicate with one another. It would be preferable if they did so without their owners’ involvement, otherwise there would be even more scope for abuse than at present. However, given the interactive cruise-control systems being incorporated into inter-vehicular communication equipment, it ought to be possible to optimise the space between cars so they can collectively maintain the best speed for a maximum throughput of traffic.