Insects give science clues to anti-social problem
MELBOURNE (Reuters Life!) - The movement of ants could help solve traffic jams and crowd congestion, Australian scientists say, and the findings could be used in future town planning systems.
Australian Associated Press reported on Thursday that Professor Graham Currie and associate professor Martin Burd, from Melbourne's Monash University, had concluded that the teamwork of ants was far superior to the individual approach of humans,.
"Ants do tend to work in a communal way with the wider good associated with what they're trying to do and that tends to add some order about how they approach problems," Currie said.
"The earliest records of congestion in cities was associated with Roman times about 2,000 years ago where they had to ban chariots from the centre of Rome. Ants have been dealing with congestion for millions of years."
Humans could learn from ants about how to deal with traffic congestion and exiting large venues after concerts or sporting events, he said.
Professor Currie said ants moved in an orderly fashion, and never seemed to panic, even when there was danger or congestion.
"Ants will organize their freeways' so that ants bearing loads are in the middle of the freeway all going one direction, and the ants that are unladen are on both sides of the middle row.
"In human crowds there is a tendency to follow the individual in front of you and that creates lots of snakes within crowds ... and that breaks down the crowd flow, making it move slower.
