The opacity of the models reinforces a power dynamic that is central to the purpose of modeling. It is not the goal of a traffic model to predict the future flow of traffic accurately. That is impossible. Even though the person doing the modeling likely believes their own results, at least enough to bet other people’s money on them, the goal is nearly always simply to justify more investment in transportation.For "future flow of traffic" substitute "temperature" or "coronavirus deaths" and for "more investment in transportation" substitute "more spending on pet projects" or "more control."
Kindly be advised by the following General Notice.
It would be funny, but for the error repeating with a different coterie of Wise Experts. "It causes few sleepless nights among my colleagues that this approach bloats engineering projects and budgets, increasing the size of contracts, fees, and compensation. It also creates few incentives to question the value of traffic modeling deeply or seek alternatives to an approach that relies on projections of traffic known to be false." That's what happens when you treat scientific inquiry as a faith tradition rather than as orderly skepticism.
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