I'm in Swindon. It is not the most picturesque city in Britain, but what it does have it
this: the Magic Roundabout.
And yes, Britons, you will probably already know about this, but Americans: I'm guessing
you're going to find that a little bit scary.
Five miniature roundabouts, around one central roundabout that goes the wrong way.
Now if you want to look into the history of this nad how it came to be, then the Central
British Road Database has a good run through the history of how the Road Research Laboratory
came to make it but what I want to talk about is the idea of emergent behaviour.
Because most of these drivers have no special rules for going across this. They're not working
out a plan in advance. They're following simple rules:
Avoid collisions.
Follow the lines.
Give way to people already on the roundabout.
And point towards your destination.
Like birds, a few very simple rules can create a really complicated flocking behaviour, even
if each of those individuals doesn't know what's going on.
If you want to know more about that, have a look into "Boids", made by Craig Reynolds,
starting in 1986. Complicated flocking behaviour, generated in a computer, from very simple
rules.
Follow those rules here and you'll pretty much safely get where you're going. You don't
need to plan in advance, you don't need advanced driving skills or to have done it hundreds
of times before: you just need to follow simple rules, the same way that flocking birds do.
Emergent behaviour means that this very odd roundabout here hardly ever backs up, even
at rush hour. It's a triumph of road design, although there will probably never be any
built like it again. The Magic Roundabout, here in picturesque Swindon.
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