“ In every street, carts and coaches make such a thundering as if the world ran upon wheels: at...

“In every street, carts and coaches make such a thundering as if the world ran upon wheels: at every corner, men, women, and children meet in such shoals, that posts are set up of purpose to strengthen houses, lest with jostling one another they should shoulder them down….”

London, 1606 (J.D. Wilson, Life in Shakespeare’sEngland, Harmondsworth, England, 1944)

The road congestion of today pales in comparison to that experienced in the imperial splendor of ancient Rome, the cosmopolitan centers of Asia and the Indian subcontinent in the 14th and 15th centuries, the world trade centers of Amsterdam and London of the 16th and 17th centuries, and even to that found in early 20th century U.S. cities such as New York and Chicago.

But, time-sensitive trips got through….Most often in ways that are not the societal norm today

Until we became an egalitarian society

Mobility Mobility andand

Accessibility Accessibility



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Intelligent Transportation Systems

Transit Facilities and Services

Intermodal Facilities and Services

Traffic Engineering

Highway Capacity

Bike/Walkways

System Operations



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Phasing/Adequacy

Density

Mixed Use

Urban Design




Traffic Engineering

Highway Capacity

Bike/Walkways

System Operations

Growth Management



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Planning & Zoning

Phasing/Adequacy

Density

Mixed Use

Urban Design




Traffic Engineering

Highway Capacity

Bike/Walkways

Alternative Work Schedules

Alternative Modes

AlternativeWork Locations

Employer SupportPrograms

Financial Incentives and Disincentives

Pricing

System Operations

Growth Management

VMT is not congestion!!

Population

Employment

Trips/Capita

Persons/Household Person Miles Traveled

Person Trip Length

Households by Vehicles Licenses

Mode Use

Auto Occupancy

Vehicle Trip Length

Vehicle Miles of Travel

Available Male Female

Male

Female Male

Female

Suburb

Central City

Suburb

Central City

Other

Auto

2 3

1 0

Vehicle costs

To get congestion, you superimpose VMT on a transportation system, which consists of different modal networks

Emphasis on the word network!!!

ObservedVehicleHome

Location:Arterial:641 Vehicles

Black grid: study areaRed dot: ramp location

~90 km

Starting Point…

Meyer’s Definition of Congestion:

That characteristic of network performance in which some component(s) of the network are unable to handle the demand at desired levels of service over a specified period of time

“…characteristic of network performance…”

•Transportation as a function of….

--Production function

--Derived demand

• Therefore shouldn’t mix up congestion en route with urban design and activity congestion

• Pursuit of speed

• Reliability (predictability) of trip-making

“…some component(s) of the network…”

Well-designed networks not only provide sufficient path capacity, but sufficient path redundancy through the network that will allow a rerouting of demand when conditions along one path (due to increasing levels of delay or because of unexpected events events such as an accident) become unbearable.

And for the transportation system….modal redundancy.

--Network effects (not enough to say it is “self-evident”); Huge spillover effects, but network capabilities are key to dealing with congestion)

--Congestion by design Functional classification (funneling effect) Can’t we do a better job at interchanges? Isn’t design at saturation levels a bit different than normal target year design?

--Focus on bottlenecks

“…at desired levels of performance…”

People are willing to suffer through a lot in order to have the ability to use an SOV…When does congestion reach a level that “action” is warranted?

People (and society) are trading a lot in individuals’ and firms’ location decisions and their relationship to transportation opportunities

Although congestion is a physical phenomenon that can be measured (e.g., average minutes of delay), it does not become a political problem until some threshold level is reached that places it on the agenda of government officials.

“…unable to handle demand….”

--increase network/facility efficiency

--divert vehicles to other network paths;

--shift travelers to other modes of transportation;

--lower vehicle demand, but increase people throughput by increasing numbers of people per vehicle;

--shift trip-making to other times;

--replace vehicular trip-making with other ways of accomplishing the trip (e.g., telecommuting);

--reduce the overall number of trips being made; and

--capacity reduction

Combining network capabilities with market-oriented, demand-influencing strategies is a key concept

e.g., HOT networks

View transportation as a service not as infrastructure leads to question of what are desired characteristics?

“…over a specified period of time.”

As a society, we have organized ourselves in day-time functions that cause many of us to want to be someplace more or less at the same time. The result is a travel demand peaking phenomenon that is characterized by congested facilities and long delays.

Concept of reservations fits here

Should we worry about congestion (and thus spend time thinking about “reducing” it)?

• Although “congestion” has always been with us, and great places are congested, I think the answer to this question is an unqualified “yes!!”

• Economic “costs” of congestion

• Externalities and distributional effects

• Quality of life (knowledge worker)

• Concern of the business community for metropolitan competitiveness

• Political issueability to deliver

And by the way, it’s not as if we didn’t have plans that would have at least kept congestion to smaller levels than today’s

Minor problem with the “fit” between these plans and other societal goals

As well as needed funding

Congestion, capacity expansion, and environmental consequences

• Complex relationships (scale, interrelation- ships, secondary and cumulative effects, and disagreements over impacts)

• Market-oriented strategies tend to have greatest environmental benefits, because they have greatest impact on travel behavior, if applied consistently and comprehensively (e.g., parking)

• There are benefits associated with induced traffic, but for overall benefits, it all depends…

Suburbanization, sprawl, urban design, land use, and transportation consequences

• Complex relationships (scale, interrelation- ships, secondary and cumulative effects, and disagreements over impacts and costs)

• Market response or market-forcing

• An important issue relates to life cycle, family desires, individual situations—hard to generalize

• Density and urban design strongly connected in terms of impacts

• Is it too late? In the short term over wide area, probably; over long term?

Pricing: “Underpricing is the key issue”

• Theoretically most effective

• Where applied, carefully done

• Have to have alternatives in place

• But often the solution of last resort. What will it take? Leadership, crisis, or sneak attack

Low High Implementation Feasibility

Leadership

Crisis

Individual voluntary decisions,benefits clear

Targeted groups, benefits clear,costs minimal, mitigation

All affected, benefits unclear, still have choice, blame unclear

All affected, benefits unclear, still have choice, blame rests with…

All affected, benefits unclear, no choice, blame rests with…

Demos

Ah yes, technology…

Basic truism: Hard to predict….and certainly past trends are not the best predictor…Are we in a transition stage to something else? Don’t look at our generation…look at our childrens’ and grandchildrens’

However, technology will play a more important role than some think

As applied to transportation, it will have an important impact on travel decisions, life style decisions, location decisions, and system management

Panacea?

Nope (because we’re human)

But, technology will be incredibly important tool for increasing

efficiency and safety

Other Important Issues

• Value of time and its use for “economic” costs

• Tyranny of the “average”….7.6 minutes is average delay?” C’mon

• Because we “funnel” traffic into a limited number of so-called high capacity, high speed facilities, significant levels of congestion are localized, but there is a regional connectiveness to congestion

• Capital-oriented investment programs…..what about strategic system management and operations?

• Models…real need for improvement

• Accessibility and isolation

What would I do?

• Look at the metropolitan “system” as a set of market-driven forces, motivations and interchanges (all the while, of course, keeping in mind the public purpose) What are the most important? How to influence decisions?

• What policies, strategies, actions can I consider to “influence” travel behavior, land use and urban design? (consistent rules of the game)

• Develop a strategic regional operations scenario (forget about infrastructure capacity investment)

• Develop a strategic regional infrastructure capacity expansion scenario (forget about operations)

• Develop permutations in between and determine the best strategy, given all the other issues facing the metropolitan area (as before, focusing on network capabilities with market-oriented, demand-influencing strategies)

• Although network focus is important I would target strategies on well-defined travel markets and traveler groups, e.g., corridors, ports, major employment centers

• Lay the groundwork for pricing through targeted opportunities

• Develop an institutional structure that reflects an operations-focused, market-oriented, community-serving, ecologically-sensitive philosophy

• Develop a funding mechanism that reflects “costs to society” as well as an investment decision making process that focuses on most cost effective actions (this may have to be categorical)

• Place all within the desired ecological and environmental carrying capacity of a region

• And perhaps most importantly, develop a planning and decision making process that is accountable and performance-oriented

The goal is one of providing CHOICE



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Planning & Zoning

Phasing/Adequacy

Density

Mixed Use

Urban Design




Traffic Engineering

Highway Capacity

Bike/Walkways

Alternative Work Schedules

Alternative Modes

AlternativeWork Locations

Employer SupportPrograms

Financial Incentives and Disincentives

Pricing

System Operations

Growth Management

Constituency Politics

Trade-offs

--Local vs regional--What is at stake (isolate competing goals)?--What is at stake today?--Who is at the table?--Who is paying the bill?--Who is getting the benefits?--Who is burdened?--Who received what in the past?--Who has access to important decision-makers?

Which suggests that unless we can convince constituencies of the benefits of whatever is being proposed, that “costs” are equitable, and that responsible entities can be trusted to produce, it will be very difficult to implement.

Are we underestimating willingness?

$0.799 to $1.499 per gallon

“ In every street, carts and coaches make such a thundering as if the world ran upon wheels: at...

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