We use a very simple description of human driving behavior to simulate
traffic. The regime of maximum vehicle flow in a closed system shows
near-critical behavior, and as a result a sharp decrease of the predictability
of travel time. Since Advanced Traffic Management Systems (ATMSs) tend to drive
larger parts of the transportation system towards this regime of maximum flow,
we argue that in consequence the traffic system as a whole will be driven
closer to criticality, thus making predictions much harder. A simulation of a
simplified transportation network supports our argument.Comment: Postscript version including most of the figures available from
http://studguppy.tsasa.lanl.gov/research_team/. Paper has been published in
Brooks RA, Maes P, Artifical Life IV: ..., MIT Press, 199
