From a great summit , you might think that cars see like pismire , but woefully commuters have yet to master insects ' advanced dealings management . By forcing ants into more and more crowd environment scientists have analyse how they avoid congestion , potentially helping improve human dealings as well .
The agency ants move in formation is so recognizable it is eternalize inchildren ’s song , yet we get it on surprisingly short about how they manage it . Dr Laure - Anne Poissonnierof Toulouse University decided to change that with an experimentation that tempted ants across a span to see how well they navigated the scrummage , reporting her findings ineLife .
Possoinier placed solid food across a nosepiece fromArgentine ant(Linepithema humile ) dependency with between 400 and 25,600 members . The width of the bridge was castrate to create 170 combinations testing the ants ' reply to change consideration .
The outcome attest that despite , or perhaps because of , their tiny brains ant are much upright than us at be active in crowds . Traffic flow was maintained when 80 percent of the bridge was worry . Previous experiment have prove humans , whether on groundwork on in cars , lean to miss stop number at 40 per centum tenancy or above .
“ At depleted densities , there is a clear linear relationship between ant density and the flowing , while at large density , the flow remains constant and no congestion happen , ” Dr Poissonnier and fellow pen in the subject area .
Given the multi - billion - dollar price oftraffic congestionto big cities , the ants ' hints would only involve to provide a few percentage benefit to be immensely valuable .
Poissonnier found pismire conform their speed of question depending on density . Moreover , as distance gets cramped they increasingly avoid fundamental interaction . Although these showdown broadcast info , they hold up traffic behind the interact ants .
One reason human traffic can get so bad is that each constituent has private goal , which may not align with the common good . endeavor to adjust human behavior , for example through congestion charges , are often fiercely resisted even in the face ofoverwhelming evidenceoftheir benefit . As Poissonier notes , ants’goal is corporate .
The researchers take note pismire are one of the few fauna besides ourselves that lease in two - way of life traffic . Other creature , such as Pisces or bison , move on people , but they do so in one instruction at a clip , deflect the need to divide available space to prevent head - on collisions .
Ant species may have develop different traffic management solutions to suit their lifestyles . Previous studies have usually been done at lower densities than Poissonnier investigated , but nevertheless revealedleaf - cutterandfireants let down their speed as density rises , while Sir Henry Joseph Wood and mass raiding ants contend to maintain constant speed within the ranges studied .
It is possibleself - drive cars may one day be programmed to act collectively , smooth out traffic menses . take in several ant approaches to draw and quarter on could alleviate this .
