<i>"It’s a paradoxical effect that occurs in complex systems," says Helbing. "Surprisingly, delay processes can improve the system altogether. It is a slower-is-faster effect. You can increase the throughput - speed up the whole system - if you delay single processes within the system at the right time, for the right amount of time."</i><p>Braess' Paradox! <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27_paradox" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27_paradox</a><p>Alright, so not quite - one is talking about introducing delays and the other is about the availability of options to rational players, but everyone should know a little bit about it.
It's about time somebody did a study like this. I don't know how many times I've sat at a red light with no cross traffic thinking about how much gas is wasted in such situations.