I've used this idea to great effect when stuck in traffic by moving into the far left lane, building up a nice gap in front of me, and then cruising at a steady 2-3mph instead of stop-and-go. I've noticed that people generally recognize this as a net-positive and will "follow the leader" with only one or two cheaters (cars which pass me and move into the gap) -- usually the cars immediately behind me.

In order to pull this off, the lane leader needs to maintain a variable length buffer of gap-space in order to prevent their velocity from falling to zero ("stopping").

As the traffic density drops, the gap increases, and you can speed up which ups the average velocity of all of the cars in the lane. Eventually, traffic density will drop down to "normal" conditions at which point cars begin to cheat with increasing frequency until a normal traffic equilibrium is reached (e.g. "not in traffic").

I would love to see an interactive model of this strategy, specifically to figure out the optimum number of lane leaders; less than the total number of lanes, I suspect.

bump: sorry. the remaining links look broken

"Build a web app/site that allows people to practice smoothing out waves, speed up time to see effects easily, animate the process for visual understanding, etc., etc. Maybe even issue stickers so one can identify people who are smoothers rather than just people cutting in line."

Lately, a mobile app or an app built into the car's computer system could coordinate smoothing actions with other cars, and give some feedback on real time smoothing.

Seems to work in my albeit anecdotal and very occasional experience of driving near Birmingham in rush hour. Would be interested to hear the perspective on UK HNers who were aorund before/after they implemented this.

And they're using it more and more:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-13426799

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¹ -- I can't see how the Highways Agency are not running fowl of the law against "impersonating a police officer" by the livery of their vehicles.