A DMAIC-based methodology for improving urban traffic quality with application for city of Montreal

Abstract

Traffic congestion is a severe problem in cities. Drivers spend hours going through the traffic. This results not only in driver fatigue but also vehicular emissions, noise and pollutants into the environment. Controlling the situation of congestion in cities is of vital importance to city transport organisations and traffic decision-makers. In this paper, we propose a DMAIC-based methodology for improving the quality of urban traffic. The proposed methodology comprises of three steps. In Step 1, we conduct a survey study to collect traffic congestion data in the city. In Step 2, DMAIC methodology is applied to analyse the survey data collected from Step 1. The techniques used are Descriptive statistics, Pareto analysis, Cause-Effect Diagram, Factor Analysis, and Control Charts (Individual and Multivariate). In the third step, we generate recommendations for reducing traffic congestion and ameliorating transportation service quality in cities based on results of Steps 1 and 2. The proposed work is novel and has practical applicability in managing the situation of traffic congestion in cities. An application of the proposed approach for city of Montreal is provided.