Traffic congestion; its what we all know very well, and oftentimes too well, because it?s now a part of our daily lives.
Whether it?s heading home from work or just going out, we are faced with traffic on the roadways if you live in any one of the major metropolitan areas. Our population is certainly growing every year, but we find ourselves asking the question, "Why does traffic congestion continue to plague the roadways when our roads also are expanding on a daily basis?"
Traffic congestion now costs our nation?s motorists $78 billion in wasted time and fuel. In addition, the average vehicle trip in urban areas now takes 26% longer during rush hour while 27% of the nation?s urban freeways are congested.
The Road Information Program (TRIP) issued its report, "Stuck in Traffic," showing that growing levels of traffic congestion could hamper the nation?s economic prosperity and result in higher costs to consumers because of increased shipping costs and higher costs to motorists.
"Increasing traffic congestion nationwide threatens to put the brakes on the nation?s economic growth," said William M. Wilkins, TRIP executive director. "The high quality of life that Americans enjoy today increasingly is jeopardized because our highway system is inadequate to meet the growing need for the reliable movement of goods.
"It turns out that the most common response to congestion, roadbuilding, is just making things worse," said Wilkins. "We don?t need more of the same: we need new solutions that give people a way to avoid traffic jams."
The analysis found that metro areas are adding highway lanes faster than they are adding residents to drive on them. In 68 major metropolitan areas which were studied, population grew by 22% while road space grew by 33%.
On average, these metro areas had 10% more highway space per person than they did in 1982. Also, it was found that every 10% increase in the highway network resulted in a 5.3% increase in the amount of driving, over and above any increases caused by population growth or other factors. This confirms other research on induced travel, the phenomenon in which increased road capacity generates additional traffic.
An answer has been found
So, where?s the solution?
Many believe it is obvious that if people telecommute, instead of commute, this will reduce traffic congestion. This belief and application has already seen some impacts on reducing congestion, but many more believe this is not the complete solution.
Potential benefits of telecommuting include:
- Reduction in highway congestion;
- Reduced emission of pollutants;
- Savings in energy and petroleum consumption; and
Traffic planners have often been skeptical, suggesting that people based at home will do more local mileage and, in doing so, reduce the benefits, or that latent demand will appear to soak up the road space left by the missing telecommuters.
This leads us to the solution which has caught on a significant amount of interest from the government and private industry?intelligent transportation systems (ITS).
The question now becomes, "What specific ITS programs and projects are being looked at as viable solutions for long-term congestion problems?"
The U.S. DOT believes that a combination of ITS and new road construction will accommodate future traffic growth at a 35% savings as opposed to meeting the same demand with construction alone. The federal government has stimulated the implementation of ITS systems by allocating significant federal funding for research and development of ITS-related projects, including approximately $1.28 billion from 1998 to 2003.
Additionally, state and local funding also has been increased and is available for ITS projects to help in this process.
The U.S. DOT also estimates that ITS applications will eliminate 1.2 million crashes per year, saving thousands of lives and $26 billion in lost productivity.
Over the next 20 years, the U.S. market for ITS products and services is expected to grow to encompass 600,000 projects costing an estimated $420 billion, and the public infrastructure-driven markets in the U.S. metropolitan areas are projected to exceed $80 billion.
One such project to alleviate congestion is under way in California, where Dynamic Technology Systems (DTS), Alexandria, Va., has deployed the Intelligent Traffic Management System (ITMS) in conjunction with the California Department of Transportation?s (Caltrans), District 4.
There, the ITMS will not only be employed to reduce traffic congestion but to maximize all elements of CCTV camera operation and incident management throughout the 10 counties and 500 square miles of the San Francisco Bay area.
DTS? ITMS solution was specifically designed for the ITS industry to bring live video to the desktop PC and transform the meaning of real-time, on-demand highway surveillance and incident management. With the ability to integrate into other ITS applications, Caltrans is able to use sensors built into both the roads and the cameras themselves to pinpoint congestion locations as well as offer the fastest response time to date of any ITS application.
When the sensors detect a slowdown in traffic flow, operators of the system instantaneously are able to receive a live video feed from where the slowdown has occurred. Operators can then quickly deal with the situation in the appropriate manner.
The X games
The ITMS also will provide Caltrans with numerous capabilities that it previously was unable to utilize. One of the more prominent features of the ITMS and its unique communications architecture is the Cross-Regional Traffic Management System (XTMS). Through the linking of remote sites, offices, agencies and other TMCs, the XTMS creates a visual communications network for the host TMC that eliminates operational and policy issues that have troubled the industry since its inception. This allows for the sharing of resources such as live camera images and raw TMC information that might not otherwise be shared and can aid in saving lives, time and money. On-board video teleconferencing also allows TMC operators to have face-to-face communication with local and state law enforcement officials, public safety officials and travelers advisory groups.
"The TMC in Oakland will be linked to the California Highway Patrol, TravInfo traveler information center and the City of San Jose, which will act as a remote operator or ?virtual node? to create our own XTMS," said Felix Zambrano, Caltrans senior telecommunications engineer. "With 10 counties under our umbrella of surveillance, the ITMS/XTMS will prove to be a valuable tool that we can employ to maximize resources, reduce traffic congestion and reduce incident management response times."
Through priority level settings that are incorporated into the ITMS by the Intelligent Management System server, host TMCs operate unaffected, regardless of other technologies employed within other TMCs, and maintain full control over their own resources regardless of how many "virtual nodes" are sharing camera control.
Additionally, the ITMS handles all user and system information such as camera and connection information and remote database management and administration.
The ITMS and other ITS solutions that involve advanced traffic surveillance and signal control systems have resulted in travel time improvements ranging from 8 to 25%. Incident management programs such as this have been shown to reduce delay associated with congestion caused by traffic incidents by 10 to 45%.
Finally, studies show that investing in metropolitan infrastructure may yield an $8 benefit for every $1 invested where the benefits can range from measurable congestion reduction and reduced crash rates to better relationships among service providers and a stronger national economy through increased mobility and new markets for products and services.
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