Trusting the GPS VS. The Tried and True Route Prisoner’s Dilemma
https://econlife.com/2019/06/mapping-apps-problem/
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/03/mapping-apps-and-the-price-of-anarchy/555551/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOkYK2yuyeM&feature=youtu.be
https://econlife.com/2018/04/traffic-apps-impact/
https://www.governancenow.com/views/columns/traffic-game-theory
As technology progresses at an exponential rate, more and more traffic and GPS apps are flooding the digital market place. From Waze, to Google Maps, to Apple Maps, and trusty MapQuest, there is a multitude of ways for commuters to speed up their morning drives. Where there used to be one known route from A to B filled with drivers there are now three optional reroutes. This increase in general knowledge has led to new traffic patterns and congestion in places previously vacant and inversely, the common freeways seeing less travelers per day.
This new issue of side streets and smaller roads filling with GPS-informed drivers has introduced to the daily lives of millions a new prisoner’s dilemma. The options are: take the savvy back road route or the tried and true (but originally jam-packed) larger highways. The answer isn’t as clear as you’d like it to be.
Originally, the savvy backroads were only available to people with personal knowledge of the route, and were kept empty due to lack of familiarity by the general public. Additionally, these side streets are often not the most direct route, but the extra distance was made worth it by the lack of traffic and avoidance of sitting in standstill traffic. At the same time, the well-known and most direct freeway was filled with commuters and heavy traffic. Now, with the introduction of the GPS apps, tourists and townies alike can be seen on backroads at any given hour of the day. This siphons off the amount of congestion sitting on those freeways. This redistribution of drivers means smaller roads are filling up and larger roads are freeing up.
What does this mean? Are the backroads still quicker, or is the rerouting just clogging up the ill-equipped-for-large-crowds side streets? Will the freeways be the smarter route to take, despite them being the original traffic contributor, because there’s more space and less commuters due to GPS rerouting? This is the Prisoner’s Dilemma.
Unlike most prisoners’ dilemmas there seems to be no right answer because there is not enough data to analyze and use to come to a conclusion. Different traffic patterns each day mean the most advantageous choice may not be great all the time. Which makes the optimal choice even more intangible. A proposed solution was to have all the GPS apps collude, in order to redistribute the rerouted drivers and keep the backroads evenly filled up – but with the competitive nature of Silicon Valley that doesn’t seem likely.
One of the links attached is to a YouTube video showing the ramifications of introducing GPS-led drivers into the roads and how the traffic patterns are altered.
Here is a diagram for visual aid:
As you can see, there is no clear choice due the ever-changing nature of traffic. Any option could be the best depending on the congestion of the day.