Traffic Congestion Issues Research Articles

A VIKOR-based approach for assessing the service performance of electric vehicle sharing programs: A case study in Beijing

Electric vehicle sharing (EVS) has been recognized as a promising solution to growing issues of traffic congestion, air pollution and insufficient parking spaces. This study assesses service performance of EVS programs in order to help operators improve service quality and attract more customers. First, this paper identifies 22 criteria from the perspectives of electric vehicles, charging stations, payment and Internet services and establishes the evaluation index system. Then a VIsekriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) based approach is proposed with three main steps including processing the criteria values represented by crisp values, interval numbers and linguistic variables, determining integrated criteria weights and assessing alternatives by VIKOR method. Next, a case study is provided to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method. Three candidate EVS programs in Beijing are evaluated and ranked according to their scores. A sensitivity analysis and a comparative analysis of different methods are also performed to show that the proposed method is capable to assess service performance of EVS programs. Finally, suggestions are made for program operators according to assessment result.

Semi-Automated Vehicle Routing System (SAVROS)

Traffic congestion becoming the severe problem in most of the places of the world. From increased stress levels to serious national economical drawbacks and from time wastage to unrecoverable environmental issues. There are many traffic management and routing solutions have been researched ,developed and tested over and again , But still there are some areas that critically contribute to affect the efficiency of an any traffic system are not discussed and improved specially in traffic routing & redirection, traffic plan updating, colour lights , traffic signs and infrastructure. Some of the systems that developed and proposed are based on much more technically advanced and sophisticated technologies but their solution and way they resolving the ultimate issue is poor. Even modern developed countries adopted those intelligent traffic routing systems to their road systems rarely due to above reason and economical and implementation issues. SAVROS is not only resolving the serious traffic congestion issues that most of the Peoples facing today but it introduces a procedure and smarter and economical way of managing the big picture of traffic management entirely .Due to above stated issues most of the countries including countries that have sophisticated road systems are still using traditional traffic management and routing mechanisms that is less efficient, need more time, cost and man power to manage and operate. SAVROS is basically consisted with a real-time embedded system connected to desktop application. Most of the traditional procedures and techniques will be replaced or improved and the system is designed to install in any existing traffic environment without making changes to them.

A QoS Solution for NDN in the Presence of Congestion Control Mechanism

Both congestion control and Quality of Service (QoS) are important quality attributes in computer networks. Specifically, for the future Internet architecture known as Named Data Networking (NDN), solutions using hop-by-hop interest shaping have shown to cope with the traffic congestion issue. Ad-hoc techniques for implementing QoS in NDN have been proposed. In this paper, we propose a new QoS mechanism that can work on top of an existing congestion control based on interest shaping. Our solution provides four priority levels, which are assigned to packets and lead to different QoS. Simulations show that high priority applications are consistently served first, while at the same time low priority applications never starve. Results in ndnSIM simulator also demonstrate that we avoid congestion while operating at optimal throughputs.

Proposal and Implementation of MPLS Fuzzy Traffic Monitor

Multiprotocol Label Switched Networks need highly intelligent controls to manage high volume traffic due to issues of traffic congestion and best path selection. The work demonstrated in this paper shows results from simulations for building optimal fuzzy based algorithm for traffic splitting and congestion avoidance. The design and implementation of Fuzzy based software defined networking is illustrated by introducing the Fuzzy Traffic Monitor in an ingress node. Finally, it displays improvements in the terms of mean delay (42.0%) and mean loss rate (2.4%) for Video Traffic. Then, the resu1t shows an improvement in the terms of mean delay (5.4%) and mean loss rate (3.4%) for Data Traffic and an improvement in the terms of mean delay(44.9%) and mean loss rate(4.1%) for Voice Traffic as compared to default MPLS implementation.

Environmental Concerns Motivate Intention to Utilize Free Bus Services:An Empirical Study in Malaysia

The free bus concept is one of the strategies used in many countries to reduce the traffic congestion problems. In Australia, free buses have been introduced in selected places to protect the nature of the city, but not for office commuters. Malaysia is unique in the sense that the free bus service is funded by the government as an alternative for commuting to ease the traffic woes. The purpose of this study was to identify the factors influencing the utilization of the free bus service since the free bus service is underutilized by 55% even after 2 years of its implementation in Malaysia. This study examined the relationship between five independent variables (predictors) namely, perceived ease of use (PE), perceived usefulness (PU), moral obligations (MO), subjective norm (SN), and financial incentives (FIN) on the intention to utilize the free bus service. From the current empirical study of 142 respondents, 60.6% were utilizing the free bus service, and 39.4% were non-users. The results showed that PE, PU, MO, and SN significantly influenced the intention to use the free bus service. It is worthwhile to mention that FIN did not statistically influence the intention to use the free bus service. It clearly indicates that people will not take it for granted anything that is given free of cost. The findings strengthen the application of the decomposed theory of planned behavior (DTPB) in predicting Malaysian commuters' behavior. The research findings also indicate that people have started taking note of the environmental problems and the ultimate benefits of using public transport for primary travel to resolve traffic congestion issues.

Gender Differences in School and Work Commuting Mode Through the Life Cycle: Exploring Trends in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, 1986 to 2011

Reducing auto dependence and increasing the use of active and sustainable modes of transportation for school and work travel are necessary for alleviating traffic congestion issues that are typical in today’s North American cities and regions. While there is a growing interest in increasing the use of active and sustainable modes of travel for commuter trips in transportation planning, less attention has been paid in practice to gender differences in travel demand. This descriptive study explores gender differences in active transportation, public transit, and automobile use through the life cycle to assess temporal changes in gendered transport over the past 25 years in the greater Toronto and Hamilton area, Canada. Findings suggest that female children and youths are driven to school more frequently than males; however, males drive more than females during the years of labor force participation. Differences between female and male automobile use increase with age, but the gender gap has declined since the mid-1980s. Factors such as having one vehicle per household, more than six household members, and living and working in the city of Toronto are shown to associate with the largest differences in driving between full-time employed women and men. Distances between home and work have increased, particularly for women, and the percentage of women with a driver’s license has increased. Although driving remains higher for men than women during the part of the life course that includes labor force participation, the gender gap in active transportation, public transit, and automobile use appears to be lower today than in the mid-1980s.

A Passengers Matching Problem in Ridesharing Systems by Considering User Preference

Ridesharing system has been recognized as an efficient transport mode to solve the environment, energy, traffic congestion issues. In recent researches, user preference was revealed as an important factor to enhance the performance and reliability of ridesharing systems. With the development in information and communication technologies (ICT), internet-enabled devices and social network enable us to obtain real-time travel information and users' personality. Therefore, user preference based on their personality is considered in this study. The aims of this study are to formulate a matching model between passengers by considering user preference and to investigate how user preference affects ridesharing system's performance. The algorithm for solving stable roommates problem is modified for one-on-one passengers matching problem. The factors of user preference are personality and steadiness of user personality. The results of numerical experiments showed that steadiness of user personality affected to both individual and system success rate, while personality only affected to system success rate.

Design of bicycling suitability maps for hilly cities

Sustainability worries related to the intensive use of energy by automobiles and traffic congestion issues have encouraged decision makers to look for alternative solutions, leading to an emerging shift towards soft/active transport modes. The bicycle, a very efficient mode of transport, is a soft travel mode that can be adopted in most cities, contributing to urban sustainability given the associated environmental, economic and social advantages. Cycling, however, also has its deterrents. Among these, it is recognised that slopes play an important role in influencing the choice for this mode of travel. The purpose of this paper is to present methods to analyse a hilly city's suitability for cycling, in what concerns relief, with the aim of identifying locations for implementation of hard aid devices that restore connectivity between most parts, or even the whole, of the city. The methodology proposed makes use of appropriate service areas. Geographical information systems technology was used to implement the methodology and the approach is demonstrated with a case study for the city of Coimbra, Portugal. This combined approach helps decision makers to plan the city in a sustainable way.

An In-Depth Study of Traffic Congestion Detection and Management in Delhi

The traffic in Delhi is a very important issue as the city experiences acute traffic problems in different locations. The commuters lose unpredicted and unproductive time on the road because of traffic jams. Though the roads of Delhi, by and large, are pretty wide, but still, there are traffic jams on the roads, mainly because the number of vehicles on the roads are more than the traffic load bearing capacity of the roads. In Delhi, the traffic is managed by the Delhi Traffic Police. In 1978, the Delhi Traffic Police Act was enforced and came into being. It looks into all types of traffic problems and suggests the possible solutions to the government. The traffic management plan prepared and implemented by the Delhi Police is based on four principles: regulations, road safety education, engineering solutions, and enforcement strategies. It was observed that the main focus of the Delhi Traffic Police is on removing the congestions which are experienced in prime locations to ease the flow of traffic. The objectives of this research work were to study the present traffic congestion problem in different main roads of Delhi, and to offer possible solutions to resolve the issue of traffic congestion, and also to find out the different safety measures undertaken by the Delhi Traffic Police to ensure the safe flow of traffic in Delhi.

Dynamic Simulation and Optimization of Traffic Signal System

With the economic development and urbanization, the number of motor vehicles increased rapidly, because the contradictions between urban traffic supply and demand imbalances are becoming increasingly acute. We used the cell transmission model (CTM) to optimize on the basis of a single intersection by observing the delay time and the traffic capacity, research into the intelligent urban traffic signal control system, improve the operating efficiency of the existing transportation system. To a certain extent, it addresses the issue of urban traffic congestion.

A Communications-Oriented Perspective on Traffic Management Systems for Smart Cities: Challenges and Innovative Approaches

The growing size of cities and increasing population mobility have determined a rapid increase in the number of vehicles on the roads, which has resulted in many challenges for road traffic management authorities in relation to traffic congestion, accidents, and air pollution. Over the recent years, researchers from both industry and academia have been focusing their efforts on exploiting the advances in sensing, communication, and dynamic adaptive technologies to make the existing road traffic management systems (TMSs) more efficient to cope with the aforementioned issues in future smart cities. However, these efforts are still insufficient to build a reliable and secure TMS that can handle the foreseeable rise of population and vehicles in smart cities. In this survey, we present an up-to-date review of the different technologies used in the different phases involved in a TMS and discuss the potential use of smart cars and social media to enable fast and more accurate traffic congestion detection and mitigation. We also provide a thorough study of the security threats that may jeopardize the efficiency of the TMS and endanger drivers' lives. Furthermore, the most significant and recent European and worldwide projects dealing with traffic congestion issues are briefly discussed to highlight their contribution to the advancement of smart transportation. Finally, we discuss some open challenges and present our own vision to develop robust TMSs for future smart cities.

Increasing Evacuation Communication Through ICTs: An Agent-based Model Demonstrating Evacuation Practices and the Resulting Traffic Congestion in the Rush to the Road

AbstractUnderstanding evacuation practices and outcomes helps crisis and disaster personnel plan, manage, and rebuild during disasters. Yet the recent expansion in the number of information and communication technologies (ICTs) available to individuals and organizations has changed the speed and reach of evacuation-related messages. This study explores ICTs’ influences on evacuation decision-making and traffic congestion. Drawing from both social science and transportation science, we develop a model representative of individual decision making outcomes based on the amount of ICT use, evacuation sources, and the degree of evacuation urgency. We compare the evacuation responses when individuals receive both advance notice of evacuation (ANE) and urgent evacuation (UE) messages under conditions of no ICTs and prolific ICT use. Our findings from the scenarios when there is widespread ICT use reveal a shift in the evacuation time-scale, resulting in traffic congestion early in the evacuation cycle. The effects of this congestion in urgent situations are significantly worse than traffic congestion in the advance notice condition. Even under conditions where face-to-face communication is the only option, evacuations still occur, but at a slower rate, and there are virtually no traffic congestion issues. Our discussion elaborates on the theoretical contributions and focuses on how ICTs have changed evacuation behavior. Future research is needed to explore how to compensate for the

Reasoning the causality of city sprawl, traffic congestion, and green land disappearance in Taiwan using the CLD model.

Many city governments choose to supply more developable land and transportation infrastructure with the hope of attracting people and businesses to their cities. However, like those in Taiwan, major cities worldwide suffer from traffic congestion. This study applies the system thinking logic of the causal loops diagram (CLD) model in the System Dynamics (SD) approach to analyze the issue of traffic congestion and other issues related to roads and land development in Taiwan’s cities. Comparing the characteristics of development trends with yearbook data for 2002 to 2013 for all of Taiwan’s cities, this study explores the developing phenomenon of unlimited city sprawl and identifies the cause and effect relationships in the characteristics of development trends in traffic congestion, high-density population aggregation in cities, land development, and green land disappearance resulting from city sprawl. This study provides conclusions for Taiwan’s cities’ sustainability and development (S&D). When developing S&D policies, during decision making processes concerning city planning and land use management, governments should think with a holistic view of carrying capacity with the assistance of system thinking to clarify the prejudices in favor of the unlimited developing phenomena resulting from city sprawl.

User Perceptions of Rail Public Transport Services in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: KTM Komuter

The needs for effective and efficient public transportation services are crucial to attract more people to use public transport, hence overcoming the issue of traffic congestion. Public transportation in Malaysia, including KTM Komuter, also facing various challenges, hence cannot offer the quality of services desired by passengers. This study aims to investigate the user perceptions towards KTM Komuter services. A survey conducted among the users during the weekdays and weekends. Findings showed three areas of their greatest concerns included services frequency, adherence to schedule and delays. Further, this paper highlighted KTM Komuter services that necessary and needed improvement.

Estimation of Traffic Congestion Cost-A Case Study of a Major Arterial in Karachi

This paper consists of a study conducted to quantify the traffic congestion problem. Additionally, it describes the complete methodological process from data collection to cost per minute delay. Traffic congestion issues are frequently observed in large cities of the world where the road facilitiesoperate at capacity limits. To estimate the congestion cost,an arterial route of Karachi (A metropolitan city of Pakistan) was selected that has significant importance due to the industrial and port associated activity. The obtained results indicate that Pak Rs. 1 million are lost daily due to traffic congestion, which is extrapolated for whole Karachi. The amount is a composition of opportunity and fuel consumption costs caused due to excessive delays in congestion.

Resident Perceptions of Sport Mega-Events: A Host Community Perspective on the Forthcoming Commonwealth Games in Glasgow 2014

Special events are a popular component of tourism and economic development strategies for communities and regions in many parts of the world. researchers continue to develop an understanding of the positive and negative aspects of the events, and to assess residents' support and their views about impacts. this study compares and contrasts methods and theories behind sport mega-events and attitude variations among residents. the research focuses on residents of Glasgow and the upcoming Commonwealth Games 2014, highlighting their perceptions toward potential impacts. this was achieved by gathering quantitative data via 85 questionnaires and the use of a semistructured interview with a key player involved in planning and organizing for the Games. Data analysis followed the format developed in the article by ritchie, Shipway, and Cleeve. the results indicated that generally residents were supportive of hosting the event, but were concerned over traffic congestion and parking issues and potential increases in tax. Further analysis demonstrated that perceptions were influenced by sociodemographics and external factors such as age, length of residency, involvement in sport, and tourism. It also showed that residents had little involvement or communication in decision making overall. these findings provide a basis for the organizing committee to ensure the engagement of the community as a whole to increase overall support even further. this would help to address issues and concerns of residents and may encourage the development of ideas to help lighten the actual impact of the event on the host community as the report concluded.

Spatial analysis of commuting mode choice in Guangzhou, China

Metropolitan cities in China are commonly confronted with unresolved traffic congestion issues, primarily due to rapidly increasing traffic demand. Group disparity between commuting mode choice and its spatial distribution on road networks has enabled us to examine the factors that give rise to the discrepancies and the fundamental spatial causes of traffic congestion. In recent years, micro-perspective, individual, and behavior-based spatial analysis have mushroomed and been facilitated with effective tools such as temporal geographic information systems (T-GIS). It is difficult to study the interrelations between transport and space on the basis of commuting mode choice since the mode choice data are invisible in a specific space such as a particular road network. Therefore, in the field of transport, the classical origin destination (OD) four-stage model (FSM) is usually employed to calculate data when studying commuting mode choice. Based on the relative principles of T-GIS and the platform of ArcGIS, this paper considers Guangzhou as a case study and develops a spatio-temporal tool to examine the daily activities of residents. Meanwhile, the traffic volume distribution in rush hours, which was analyzed according to commuting modes and how they were reflected in the road network, was scrutinized with data extracted from travel diaries. Moreover, efforts were made to explain the relationship between traffic demand and urban spatial structure. Based on the investigation, this research indicates that traffic volumes in divergent groups and on the road networks is driven by: 1) the socio-economic characteristics of travelers; 2) a jobs-housing imbalance under suburbanization; 3) differences in the spatial supply of transport modes; 4) the remains of the Danwei (work unit) system and market development in China; and 5) the transition of urban spatial structure and other factors.

Urban Traffic Management and Urban Planning

At present, traffic problem has become one of the biggest problems about the development of urban city in China. Faced with this problem, it is important for traffic planning to keep traffic be in accordance with the city. It is a challenge to urban planning, especially to the traditional method by land utilization planning. To relieve traffic congestion and other issues blocking, we can not only enhance road construction, but also make some innovation about the new thoughts and methods for the functional departments of the government. This is the key to solve the urban traffic problem for the time being.

Auto Restricted Zone versus price changes: a case study

This case study compares the Auto Restricted Zone Policy (ARZ) with price changes for parking permits in Louisiana State University (LSU). We find that ARZ has a more significant effect on the reduction in purchase of parking permits than price increases, albeit with a lag. We also find that while driving continues to be the primary mode of choice, a significant number of students are willing to adopt alternative means of transportation, if facilities associated with them are improved. Since LSU is fairly representative, we believe that this case study contains lessons for other universities in the country facing traffic congestion issues.

Dynamic Congestion Control through backup relay in Bluetooth scatternet

Bluetooth is a low power wireless technology designed to connect various short-range devices such as laptops, cameras, cell-phones, head-phones, navigators, etc. Bluetooth has limited resources and its devices are connected in ad hoc fashion. The Bluetooth specification allows only eight active devices to communicate within its smallest networking unit known as piconet. Multiple piconets can be connected together through at least one common device, known as relay to form a bigger network called a scatternet. The performance of a scatternet is highly determined by the performance of the relay since it acts as a switch between multiple piconets, where inter-piconet scheduling is the main task to perform. However, the presence of too many relays in the network may cause inefficient use of the limited resources. In contrary, less number of relays may lead to congestion problem because each relay has to participate in multiple piconets and supports several connections. One possible solution is to reorganize the nodes in the scatternet, in order to increase the available bandwidth and to reduce the traffic flows on the congested link. Hence, primarily this paper addresses the issues of traffic congestion on a link by analyzing traffic load in the network. To achieve this, activation of a backup relay is performed by applying role-switching operation, and this technique is called Dynamic Congestion Control (DCC). With DCC, the route length is assured not to increase as to alleviate message and packet overheads in scheduling. The simulation results are evidence that DCC has reduced transmission delays and has increased the scatternet lifetime from 25% to 50% as compared to RVM and LORP techniques.