Mitigating urban motorway congestion and emissions via active traffic management

Abstract

Due to unavoidable expansion of car-ownership, traffic congestion and emissions in developing countries keep on increasing. Meanwhile, high construction costs and statutory restrictions hinder traditional road infrastructure expansion and improvement projects. Thus, exploring cost-effective traffic management solutions to relieve traffic congestion and emissions becomes one of the most significant challenges faced by transportation authorities, especially in developing countries. Active traffic management (ATM) systems that are environmentally sustainable and relatively low-cost are particularly advantageous. In this study, we develop an integrated ATM system to mitigate urban motorway congestion and emissions. The proposed system can be used directly with existing road facilities, which provides a cost-effective way for traffic management and decarbonization in developing countries. The simulation results show that the developed system can reduce travel time spent (TTS), carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen oxides (NO2) by 7.5%, 21.1% and 10.7%, respectively.