So I was having a discussion with a couple of people in Toronto as well as in Montreal about when one should merge into the highway when you're in a merging lane that ends. The assumption in our discussion is that we are considering the situation in full rush hour traffic. When traffic is free-flowing on the highway, it is obvious that one should merge as soon as it is safe to do so, so as to avoid disrupting the existing steady slow of traffic. In congested traffic, is it still prudent to merge as early as you can? Or would it be more efficient to merge at the end of the merge lane?
Traditionally, the thought is to merge as soon as you can, in other words, at the beginning or in the middle of the crawling traffic. Would this not be rather random and because of the nature of drivers, once you merge, other drivers behind you in the merging lane would scoot around and merge in farther up ahead, creating now a 2:1 new car ratio (i.e. 2 cars in for every 1 existing car) or more likely a 3:1, 4:1, etc. ratio? This would create an exponentially increasing backlog in the merged lane versus sticking with a 1:1 ratio, which I'll describe below.
Would it be more effective for everyone to simply alternately merge at the end of the merge lane? It would essentially be a 1:1 new car to existing car ratio. Mathematically, it'd be twice as slow as normal traffic (plus some slowdown due to adjusting for a new car in the lane). Would this not be more efficient?