Talk:Traffic congestion

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[edit] Worldwide view

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 The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.
Please improve this article or discuss the issue on the talk page.

Clarification: the bulk of the article is about Traffic congestion in the US only. — mark ✎ 16:03, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I disagree - with the exception of some sections dealing with specific examples, this article is applicable almost anywhere in the world. May have been ddifferent when you placed the tag, of course. Ingolfson 00:21, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Private highway

I have started the private highway article, which will include a discussion of how privatization can alleviate traffic congestion. The Cato quote comparing the US highway transportation system to the Soviet grocery distribution system is particularly interesting. Rad Racer | Talk 05:59, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What is particularly interesting about that comparison? It's just stating the obvious. 137.222.40.132 17:33, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The notorious "Atlanta Gas Station Shortcut."

Never heard of it. At this point, ironically, various web searches for the NOTORIOUS "Atlanta Gas Station Shortcut" only lead back to this article on Wikipedia. Search on Reader's Digest site comes up empty. More info please or remove it. For now, can we assume this is when a person cuts across private property (a gas station) to get around traffic congestion?

Okay, I'm pulling the claim. I thought I saw it in a "Reader's Digest" article about a decade ago but I don't have the time right now to go chase down the cite. --Coolcaesar 08:08, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
 : There are at least a dozen "gas station" shortcuts that I can think of in the UK Paul Weaver 07:06, 19 August 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Atlanta, Georgia have an average commute of 35 minutes.

Oh wow. The average commute time in the UK is 45 minutes [1]. The average commute time in London, with most people using PT too, is nearer 90 minutes. I propose this pointless statement is removed - I suspect it was added by the same person that thinks the "Atlanta Gas Station Shortcut" is something of interest to the 99.994% of the world that don't live there. Paul Weaver 07:06, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 1.5% road length expansion example

Be useful to source this, but also is this just the length of new roads added, or does it include widening of existing roads? I would think the latter would be the more useful comparison to make but not sure from the way it is worded whether this is what is meant or not. Sfnhltb 14:52, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleaning Up

I just moved three paragraphs that dealt with economic theory (tragedy of the commons, etc.) from the intro, which was too long and unfocussed, to a new section. Also, I moved the limited-geographic-scope notice to the top of the page, where it really begins. Finally, regarding Classification of congestion section... I've never encountered the DOT scale that's been being described. While 4 years of education and 2 summer jobs don't constitute decades of experience in traffic engineering, I'd think if it were a major scale, I'd have heard of it. So, anyway, I asked if we get a source on that - i.e., what document defines it. I put in a paragraph on the Level of Service system in that section, too, since that system's huge in engineering and planning.

I'm suggesting two future changes to the article. One's specific: condense Attempts to Alleviate Traffic Congestion into more readable prose and split the section into Traffic Management, which is a better name, a name actually used in government and industry, and currently (and historically) just a redirect to Bandwidth management. The second's general: let's make an effort to up the technical quality of this article. The Literate Engineer 22:02, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I just took out "The U.S. Department of Transportation uses the following scale, based on lane occupancy, to classify traffic congestion:

  • 35% or higher: Stop and Go
  • 22% - 35%: Heavy
  • 15% - 22%: Moderate
  • 0-15%: Wide Open" since 3 months went by without a citation after I requested one. The Literate Engineer 18:07, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Increasing speed limits to increase the flow of cars

At all but the slowest speeds, the "flow of cars" ie. road capacity in cars per hour depends on the interval between cars, not on the speed. Increasing speed limits actually reduces road capacity because the interval increases (eg. minimum safety interval is 1s at 20 mph, and 2s at 80 mph). Speed limits are normally increased to speed up journey times, never to fight congestion.

Well, actually the "slowest speeds" are about 35MPH and below. The graph of flow rate versus vehicle speed looks like a hump, and the peak is at around 35MPH. It's determined by the "two second rule" and by driver psychology, where drivers adjust their spacing depending on what feels safe to them. (So in different countries or even differen cities the "optimum flow speed" would be somewhat different.) But in general, if we wanted to maximize the flow on a highway, we'd set the speed limit to 35. Obviously this increases the trip-time for each vehicle. --Wjbeaty 17:51, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kerner (European) traffic congestion theory

Added the classification of Boris Kerner of traffic congestion. --User:Hinsbergen 13:32, 2- Nov 2006 (EST).

[edit] decongestion

Probably, it would be great to add something about decongestion, a process to solve congestion problems. --Yuriy Lapitskiy 00:14, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Parking Guidance and Information

I thought PGI systems were well worth a mention as they have been proven to reduce congestion in urban areas. See main Article for details. Kinkladze28 11:37, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Impacts, equilibrium & sources

On 31st July 2007, having previously copy-edited the article a little, I made a fairly long addition (cited below) which was in great part deleted again by Ingolfson on 2nd August. His objections are that it is original research and lacks references. After a delay caused by holidays, I'd now like to challenge that deletion.

The reason I made the addition is that when I read the article, I felt that while it has praiseworthy and informative elements of engineering exactitude (e.g. the relationship between vehicle speed and road capacity), it also has a tendency to make unjustified claims and is unbalanced. For instance it includes a section on 'negative impacts' (some fairly flaky IMHO) but not a corresponding one on 'positive impacts'. It might lead one to believe that congestion is a technical 'problem' that can be 'solved' by engineering fixes. I believe that more needs to be said about the behavioural and economic basis, building on the existing text on the tragedy of the commons.

I thus attempted to balance the list of impacts and to introduce a discussion of congestion in terms of dynamic equilibrium.

I do not think that this is original research and do not feel that references, whilst always valuable, are any more vital for this section than for other sections.

I would accordingly plead for the reinclusion of the text below, subject to such amendments as may be agreed. I will revisit once people have had a chance to comment.

TobyJ 16:24, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

The original addition read as follows:

Traffic congestion cannot be ‘cured’, as is the inevitable result of a dynamic system reaching equilibrium: if you alter one parameter, others will adjust themselves until equilibrium is achieved again. For instance increasing the capacity of a road will reduce journey times, which will encourage more traffic to use the road, which will eat up much of the gain. However policy measures can shift the point at which the equilibrium will settle: for instance congestion charging or a cheap fares policy can permanently alter the economic incentive to take public transport, and the provision of bicycle lanes and bicycle racks and intermodal facilties at railway stations can lead to a permanent shift to cycling.

- In many respects therefore, the level of congestion that we tolerate is a rational (or a political) compromise among the costs and benefits that travel has for different stakeholders. For instance building a new road will have the benefit of saving the time of commuters, but in addition to the actual cost of construction will bring the disbenefits of obliging people to move house if their houses are knocked down, of added noise and pollution for neighbouring residents, of the disruption of existing communities and so on. + In many respects, the level of congestion that society tolerates is a rational (though not necessarily conscious) choice between the costs of improving the transportation system (in infrastructure or management) and the benefits of quicker travel.

- Furthermore, while few people actively like traffic congestion, it does have some positive impacts: - *Slow-moving traffic is safer; any collisions that do occur cause much less serious damage and injury, particularly to pedestrians and cyclists. - *It gives a rhythm to the day, by generating a regular period of time each day during which commuters can reflect, talk to each other, or listen to the radio. It thus creates a ‘decompression chamber’, a period of transition between home and work. - *It creates niches for various sorts of economic activity, from 'drive time' radio stations to the selling of newspapers and window-cleaning services to drivers stuck in traffic jams.

[end of proposed text]

Hello TobyJ - My apologies if you felt that your work was deleted without cause. However, I stand by my decision. I don't tend to agree with your comments about the positive effects of congestion, but I have no problem with you sourcing them.
However, the way to fix an article that has insufficient references, or is too heavily slanted towards one part of the debate, is not adding more unsourced material. There are two ways which are acceptable: remove unsourced material (but note that while the bullet points in this article are often not referenced themselves, many of them lead to connected/relevant articles, and all we should debate for these is how we phrase the linkage in a NPOV way) or, second method, by adding sourced material. So please do some research to add references to your material, and I won't see any reason to revert the material. 23:59, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Everything has some positive impacts. You could argue that crime is desirable because it keeps millions of policemen and psychiatrists employed. But traffic congestion, like crime, is generally regarded as a social and economic ill that can be prevented (and indeed has been prevented in some places such as Singapore). That alone is not reason to include those positive impacts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cambrasa (talk • contribs) 15:41, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
I've got no problem with the inclusion of purported positive effects of congestion. However, this needs to be referenced, not only as being something positive that has some RELATION to congestion, but referenced as something that is provides benefits BECAUSE of congestion.Ingolfson 11:08, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Redirect

Howdy, when I was searching for the Ralph Bakshi movie Heavy Traffic, it redirected me here, rather than, you know, the article entitled Heavy Traffic. Someone fix this, as I don't know how/am lazy. 70.44.178.86 (talk) 07:50, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Fixed by changing redirect to a WP:DAB page. Walter Siegmund (talk) 13:55, 6 April 2008 (UTC)