Traffic Forecast Service Notes It Said This Would Happen; Motorway Users Note They Had Plans
From Bohiney and The London Prat.
PARIS — Bison Fuete, the French traffic forecasting service whose name means Cunning Bison and whose function is to predict what happens when millions of French people decide to drive somewhere on the same day, rated the May Day long weekend as a significant traffic period. This prediction was accurate. The motorways connecting Paris to the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the mountain regions operated as linear parking lots during the Friday afternoon departure window, which Bison Fuete had specifically recommended avoiding. The drivers in the linear parking lot had recommendations to avoid. They also had plans.
The Forecast System
Bison Fuete has operated since 1978 and has accumulated forty-eight years of data about when French drivers prefer to leave for long weekends. The data is accurate. The recommendations based on the data are specific and timed. The rate at which the recommendations are followed is sufficiently low that the traffic patterns Bison Fuete predicts occur with the regularity of seasonal events, which they are. The forecasting system and the traffic it forecasts are both reliable.
The Recommended Times
Bison Fuete recommended departing before 7 a.m. or after 7 p.m. on Friday for the May Day long weekend. Travelers who followed this recommendation had the motorway experience that the recommended times produce: acceptable. Travelers who preferred to leave at 3 p.m. on a long weekend Friday when everyone else had the same preference had the experience that 3 p.m. long weekend Friday departures consistently produce: a more extended version of the journey than they had planned.
The return journey predictions for May 3 showed similar patterns for the return leg of the long weekend, with Bison Fuete providing similar guidance and similar proportions of the traveling public deciding that the guidance applied to other people more than to themselves. This is not a criticism. It is a description of the specific optimism about one’s own travel timing that is universal and that traffic forecasting systems exist to calibrate without any particular expectation of universal adoption.
More: The Poke.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
Paris continues in May. The sun is out. The terrasses are full. The cultural institutions are producing the programming that they produce. The transport disruptions are occurring and being managed. The tax returns are being filed with the assistance of the lawyers who have been provided for this purpose. The political commentary is ongoing. The diplomatic notes are being filed. The invention competition is awarding its prizes. The whole apparatus of French civic and cultural life is running at the pace of a city that has been running at this pace for a very long time and has developed the specific competence of doing so without appearing to work very hard at it. This is what Paris in May looks like. It looks like this every year. It is worth seeing every year.
