关于交通堵塞，蚂蚁能教会我们什么
关于交通堵塞，蚂蚁能教会我们什么
You have to admire the grace of ants on the move. No matter how many of them are streaming toward their destination, there's never a hold up. No fender benders. And, unlike humans, they know how to pull off a proper lane merge.
你不得不佩服蚂蚁移动的优雅。不管有多少人涌向目的地，都不会有延误。没有防撞弯管机。而且，与人类不同的是，它们知道如何进行正确的车道合并。
No matter how many ants share the road, their progress is always steady. (Photo: wan azizi/Shutterstock)
A new research paper published this week in the journal eLife reveals how ants keep traffic flowing by changing their behavior to meet changing conditions.
本周发表在《生命》杂志上的一篇新研究论文揭示了蚂蚁如何通过改变自己的行为来满足不断变化的条件来保持交通畅通。
If traffic is at a trickle, for instance, ants will space themselves out and behave more individualistically. But when it's bumper-to-bumper — or in this case, antennae-to-abdomen — they coalesce into a single stream that just keeps flowing.
例如，如果交通流量是涓涓细流，蚂蚁就会把自己隔开，表现得更有个性。但是，当它的保险杠到保险杠，或者在这个例子中，天线到腹部，它们合并成一个单一的流，只是继续流动。
Tapping into the Argentine ants' knack for fast commutes, the researchers built bridges connecting their colonies. The bridges varied in width from a fifth to three-quarters of an inch. The colonies, too, were of different sizes, ranging from 400 to more than 25,000 ants.
利用阿根廷蚂蚁快速通勤的本领，研究人员建造了连接它们的蚁群的桥梁。桥的宽度从五分之一英寸到四分之三英寸不等。蚁群大小不一，从400只到25000多只不等。
Essentially, researchers built a new infrastructure system for the ants, connecting their biggest cities to the smallest hamlets. Then they sat back and monitored the traffic.
本质上，研究人员为蚂蚁建立了一个新的基础设施系统，将它们最大的城市与最小的村庄连接起来。然后他们坐下来监视交通。
And surprise, surprise, even when those narrower bridges reached near-capacity, there were no 20-ant pile-ups. Indeed, there was nary a fender-bender.
令人惊讶的是，即使那些更窄的桥梁达到接近承载能力，也没有20只蚂蚁堆积。的确，没有发生任何小事故。
Traffic remained steady regardless of how overburdened the infrastructure because they were able to adjust to the ebb and flow of road conditions. At some point, when the bridges got really busy, ants moved not so much as individuals but rather like water flowing in an ever-constant stream.
交通保持稳定，不管基础设施负担如何沉重，因为他们能够适应道路状况的起伏。在某一时刻，当桥梁变得非常繁忙时，蚂蚁的移动不像单个蚂蚁那样频繁，而是像一条永不停歇的溪流。
The lesson for humans? The traffic conundrum — one of modern life's seemingly unsolvable puzzles — may lie in our inability to adjust our driving habits for the good of the whole. You've probably noticed it on your own commute to work. Driving is fun when there are few cars on the road — a lane-change here, a little acceleration there. Then traffic slows to a crawl. And yet, some impatient driver still acts like he's alone on the road, tailgating and constantly jockeying between lanes. It doesn't buy that driver any more time, but instead further entangles traffic.
对人类的教训?交通难题——现代生活中看似无法解决的难题之一——可能在于我们无法为了整体的利益而调整我们的驾驶习惯。你可能在上班的路上就注意到了。当路上的车很少的时候，开车是很有趣的——这里换道，那里加速。然后交通变得缓慢。然而，一些没有耐心的司机仍然表现得像一个人在路上，紧跟在后面，不断地在车道之间打转。它不再为那个司机争取更多的时间，反而使交通更加混乱。
We are not ants, but we could learn a thing or two from their traffic management skills. (Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images)
The research also suggests that infrastructure projects, like the ever-widening of highways, may never free us from the plague of traffic jams. As long as we motor along with our own agendas, no matter how many other people are on the road, we'll always end up in a traffic snarl.
研究还表明，基础设施项目，比如高速公路的不断拓宽，可能永远无法让我们摆脱交通堵塞的困扰。只要我们按照自己的计划开车，不管路上有多少人，我们最终都会陷入交通混乱。
Indeed, less space may actually be a good thing. It leaves less room for individual choice and forces us to take a page from the driving manual of ants.
实际上，更少的空间可能是一件好事。这就减少了个体选择的空间，迫使我们不得不从蚂蚁的驾驶手册中学习一页。
