Chapter Two

Transport Management Strategies

1
Contents
 Introduction
 Basics of traffic congestion
 Traffic congestion management approaches
o The Do-minimum Approach
o Land-use Planning Approach
o Public Transport-oriented Approach
o Car-oriented Approach
o Demand Management Approach

2
 Introduction
 Road and public transport problems are currently a
significant issue in most countries, especially those with
less developed economies-experiencing rapid
urbanization.
 Traffic delay, road accidents, and environmental
pollution are growing substantially particularly in large
urban areas, and is affecting people's life.

3
 ….cont’d
 However, resolving these problems requires changes in:
Public attitudes, personal practices, and need
technical solutions.
 The building of new roads has only a limited role to play
in respect to solving today’s (and tomorrow's) transport
problems, particularly in urban areas.

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What is Congestion?
• There is no single, broadly accepted definition of traffic
congestion.
• One of the principal reasons for this lack of consensus is
that congestion is conceived from both:
1. Operational perspective: a physical phenomenon
relating to the manner in which vehicles impede each
others’ progression as demand for limited road space
approaches full capacity.
2. User perspective: a relative phenomenon relating to
user expectations in relation to road system
performance.
5
6
 ……cont’d

 Congestion is a condition in which the number of

vehicles attempting to use a roadway at any time
exceeds the ability of the roadway to carry the
load at generally acceptable service levels.
• It arises because more people wish to travel at a given
time than the transportation system can
accommodate: when demand exceeding supply.

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 …..

WHAT CAUSES TRAFFIC CONGESTION TO

HAPPEN?

8
 …..cont’d

• Traffic congestion in urban areas is often the outcome

of:
 Successful urban economic development,
 Employment opportunities, and
 Housing policies that make people want to live and
work relatively close to each other and attract firms
to benefit from the gains in productivity derived.
 Too many vehicles for a given road’s, design or
intersection capacity,
 Dynamic changes in roadway capacity caused by
lane-switching.
9
 ….cont’d

 Congestion is also invariably linked to other indirect

factors such as land-use patterns, income levels, car
ownership trends, infrastructure investment, etc.
 Generally, we can identify two principal, broad
categories of causal factors;
1. Micro-level factors: related to traffic on the road
2. Macro-level factors: related to overall demand for
road use.

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When is congestion excessive?

Congestion is excessive when:

 People say it is
 The marginal costs, to society, of congestion

exceed the marginal costs of efforts to reduce

congestion-such as adding to road or other transport
infrastructure, congestion is excessive and action to
manage it better is warranted.

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Indicators of congestion

There are two general approaches for measuring

congestion;
1. Operational approach: concerned with observable
features of roadway performance/service capacity-
speed, flow, density, queue length and duration.
Peak hour traffic speed can be serve as a benchmark
for average speed.
2. Economic-based approach: involves extrapolating
physical measures into monetary values.

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Types of Congestion

 Recurrent congestion-occur due to factors that act

regularly or periodically on the transportation system
as a result of capacity or operational problems.
 When roads are operated at or near their maximum

capacity, small changes in available capacity due to

such factors as differential vehicle speeds, lane
changes, and acceleration and deceleration cycles can
trigger a sudden switch from flowing to stop-and-go
traffic.

13
 ….cont’d

 Non-recurrent congestion-is the effect of

unexpected, unplanned or large events such as road
works, crashes, special events and so on that affect
parts of the transportation system.
 The share of non-recurrent congestion varies from

road network to road network and is linked to the

presence and effectiveness of incident response
strategies, roadwork scheduling and prevailing
atmospheric conditions-snow, rain, fog, etc.

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Management mechanisms….

• Congestion management and travel demand

management are mechanisms which are used to address
problems in cities.
• Implemented individually or in cooperation with one

another, these measures can help to achieve one or more

of the following:
 Reduce the need to make a trip,
 Reduce the length of a trip,

15
 ….cont’d

 Promote non-motorized transport,

 Promote public transport,
 Promote carpooling,
 Shift peak-hour travel,
 Shift travel from congested locations,
 Reduce traffic delays

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 ……cont’d
In order to alleviate these problems, the management
measures are grouped as:
 Supply-side measures: involves managing the
transportation system by adding new facilities or by
making operational changes to improve system
performance.

17
 …cont’d

o It involves construction of new highways and transit

facilities; the provision of improved traffic signalization
schemes; the use of traffic engineering improvements such
as turn lanes, one-way streets, reversible lanes, and turn
prohibitions.
o Aim at increasing the capacity of a road system so as to
improve the traffic flow for all modes of transport using it

18
 …..cont’d

 Demand-side measures: is any action or set of actions

intended to influence the intensity, timing, and spatial
distribution of transportation demand for the purpose of
reducing the impact of traffic.
o It involves offering commuters one or more alternative
transportation modes and/or services, providing incentives
to travel on these modes or at non-congested hours, and/or
incorporating growth management or traffic impact
policies into local development.

19
 ……cont’d

o Such decisions are intended to reduce car demand by

increasing the mode share carried by public transport,
increasing vehicle occupancy, reducing the need to travel
to a particular destination, and/or reducing the need to
travel during peak traffic periods

20
 …cont’d
 In general, the various demand and supply-side measures
are presented in the context of five contrasting traffic
planning approaches in an urban area:
1. Do-minimum approach
2. Land use planning approach
3. Car-oriented approach
4. Public transport-oriented approach
5. Demand management approach

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1. Do-Minimum Approach
 This approach assumes that traffic congestion, road
accidents, and environmental degradation are inescapable
features of modern-day life.
 If left to itself, human ingenuity and self-interest will

ensure that congestion will become self-regulating before

it becomes intolerable.

22
 ….cont’d

 Drivers who regularly encounter recurring congestion on

main roads in urban areas often seek to reduce their delays
by developing rat runs-through adjacent neighborhoods.
 Recurring congestion also encourages the flight of home

owners and business from inner cities to suburbia, leaving

tracts of run-down areas.

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2. The land-Use Planning Approach
• The decentralization of people and jobs to suburbia, and
to smaller free standing towns in non-metropolitan areas,
has been possible because of the increase in personal
mobility brought about by the private car.
• The control of land use is to a large extent the key to the
control of both the demand for transport and its impact
upon the environment.

24
 ……cont’d
o This approach aim to increase the competitiveness and
attractiveness, and promote choice by increasing the
relative advantage of travel other than by car.
o It seeks to influence settlement patterns so as to increase
the accessibility of jobs, shops, educational institutions,
places of entertainment, etc., without the need to travel by
car or, when travel by car is essential, by minimizing its
usage and shortening the distance travelled.

25
 ….cont’d

Practical land use control measures are:

 Limit the spread of cities so as to keep up residential

densities and protect green belt open land.

 Increase the supply of housing in existing urban areas

where they can be easily accessible to existing

facilities.
 Concentrate higher-density residential developments

near public transport centers or alongside corridors well

serviced by public transport.

26
 …….cont’d
 Locate high-density offices and retail establishments at
sites already well served by public transport, and in places
easily reached from local housing by bus, cycle or
walking.
 Facilities that attract large numbers of people from a wide

catchment-universities, conference centers, hospitals,

major libraries and governmental offices, should be
located at sites in urban areas that are well served by
public transport.

27
 …cont’d

 Promote the juxta-position of employment and residential

uses (urban villages)-people have increasing opportunities
to work at or near their homes.
 Locate developments which attract significant movements

of freight away from residential areas and close to

transport networks.
 Allocate sites unlikely to be served by public transport

solely for uses which are not employment intensive.

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In addition to land use control mechanisms, transport
management measures include:
 Limiting the amount of car commuting to areas that are

well serviced by public transport by imposing the

required parking spaces to be provided by the developers.
 Limiting new road construction to that essential for the

servicing of new developments.

 Promote the use of public transport, and safe cycling and

walking.

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 ….cont’d
 Ensuring that parking provision at peripheral office, retail
and similar developments is not available at high levels-
discourage movement from central and inner-city areas to
outer park-and-ride interchange locations.
 Implementing area-wide traffic calming schemes to

protect existing housing developments from through

movements by the private car.
 Establishing car-free zones at concentrations of shopping.
 Requiring large employers to introduce plans which

reduce the demand for commuter parking.

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3. The Car-oriented Approach
o The post-World War II era saw very rapid developments
in respect of the growth and usage of the private car.
o Associated with this growth was the worldwide
production of transport plans in the 1950s and 60s which
emphasized the urgent need to provide more and bigger
roads (particularly roads linking city center with city
center, and suburbia with central areas).

31
 ….cont’d
o Car-oriented planning approach was usually a demand for
huge numbers of parking spaces in and about town
centers, and a tacit acceptance that the public transport
system should be allowed to decline to some base level of
service.
o Many of these predict and provide plans were never
implemented for cost and environmental reasons.

32
 …cont’d

o Cities that have adopted approaches which favor the

private car (as well as those which have not, mainly since
the mid-1960s) place considerable emphasis on the
importance of road hierarchy and on the implementation
of traffic operations which provide motorists with real-
time information regarding congested locations and times,
and improve traffic flows with the aid of traffic control
technology.

33
 ……cont’d
o Many roads have become multi-functional-they act as:
♥ Parking spaces for vehicles
♥ Passageways for pedestrians and cyclists,
♥ Carriageways for through vehicular traffic
♥ Access ways to frontage properties
♥ Routes for public transport
♥ Corridors for the location of
water/sewerage/gas/electrical services.

34
 ….cont’d

o This approach emphasizes on prioritization of the

transport functions served by various types of road.
o In essence they divided roads into three main functional

groups:
 Arterial roads: which are primarily for longer-distance

high-speed through-vehicle movements and, hence,

provide minimal access to adjacent frontages.

35
 ….cont’d

 Collector roads: are also called the middle road, which

are intended to provide for both shorter through-vehicle
movements and frontage access.
 Local roads: whose main function is to provide for

frontage access and, thus, whose design and traffic

management is intended to discourage through traffic.

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4. The Public Transport-oriented Approach

• The emphasis of the transport plan is on significant

improvements of the quality and quantity of public
transport services.
• These are normally associated with land use, economic,
administrative and improved traveler information
services measures which encourage the usage of public
transport.

37
 …cont’d

Public transport systems are:

 More energy efficient
 Emit less airborne pollutants
 Minimize the amount of land used for transport (including

parking) purposes
 Result in better physical environments in urban areas
 Helps to retain employment and other activities in central

areas, as well as facilitating pedestrianization.

38
 …cont’d
Þ However, people are unlikely to turn to public transport
unless it is provided at reasonable cost by clean,
comfortable vehicles and unless services are regular,
predictable and reliable.
Rail public transport
o Rail systems are most effectively used to service densely
populated cities with relatively long journey to-work
distances along radial corridors with congested roads
which are central area-oriented.
o Because of the high cost of rail systems in urban areas,
making the full use of existing rail infrastructure is the
key to ensuring the success of most new rail schemes.
39
 ….cont’d
o The essence of this approach is that rail operators should
motivate passengers through:
 Providing rail customers with real time electronic

information displays at stations.

 Publishing charters which set out their target standards of

service to passengers ( compensation scheme when delays

occur).
 Travel cards which allow patrons to change from one rail

system to another, and from bus to rail, and vis versa

without the need for re-ticketing have been shown.

40
 ….cont’d
Bus Public Transport
 Strategies used to favor bus public transport over the
private car include:
 Land use planning which locates large traffic generators at
sites which are capable of being well served by buses.
 Improving bus services: quicker, more reliable journeys
can stimulate bus patronage as well as reducing overall
journey times and costs.
 Using traffic restraint to make car travel more difficult.

41
 …cont’d

 Prioritylanes reserved for buses that allow them to bypass

congested traffic travelling in the same direction.
 Bus-only streets-existing streets that are turned into bus

roads, and busways, i.e. segregated roads that are designed

and constructed for buses only.
 Allowing buses to have access to pedestrian precincts.

42
 …cont’d

 Providing automatic or driver-initiated bus detection at

traffic signals when bus flows are low and/or road widths
are insufficient to accommodate a bus lane, or programming
area-wide urban traffic control schemes to give favorable
attention to buses.
 Using traffic regulations to give priority to buses when

leaving bus stops, to impose parking restrictions on bus

routes, and to provide exemptions to buses from
prohibitions affecting turning movement at intersections.

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Traffic Restraint

 There is much evidence to suggest that car traffic is not

significantly reduced by measures which rely only upon
improvements to public transport.
 Rather, the general consensus is that if bus (and rail)

patronage is to be increased and road congestion lessened,

then the public transport improvements must also be
accompanied by measures that discourage the use of
private vehicles in urban areas.

44
 …cont’d

 Control measures currently utilized in areas well serviced

by public transport include:
 Minimizing the number of spaces allowed in new

developments, and attempting to reduce the total number

of controlled spaces in existing developments.
 Limiting the continuous length of time during which a car

may stay in a controlled parking space.

 Imposing a parking charge regime on controlled parking

spaces which favors short-stay parkers

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 5. Demand Management Approach
o Focuses on:
 Encouraging greater public transport usage and

carpooling; by giving priority at congested locales and

times to high-occupancy vehicles,
 Imposing traffic restraint via stringent parking

control measures at destinations,

 Promoting the use of variable working hours and

telecommunication working processes by large

employers so as to shift travel from congested peak
periods.

46
 ……cont’d

o Furthermore, it includes the use of road pricing

mechanisms that are based on the concept that road users
who contribute to congestion are a cause of additional
costs to society and if they were to be charged for these
costs, some would travel at different times, by different
routes or by different means, and congestion would
therefore be reduced.

47
 …..cont’d
Car-pooling
• Car-pooling refers to putting drivers of single-occupancy

vehicles into fewer vehicles.

• Car-pooling can be:
 Informal-formed by a group of people acting on their own

who share the driving and thereby reduce the cost of

driving alone, or
 Organized-by an employer or by a governmental or

private agency that co-ordinates the activities of a number

of employers.

48
 …cont’d
Car-pooling is most effectively used when:
o Trips are relatively long, so that the time spent gathering

the occupants is small relative to the rest of the journey,

and
o The participants have the same travel schedule each day.
o Car-pools that continue for long periods of time have

participants who are compatible, work in the same

employment area, and have full-time jobs with regular
hours.

49
 ….cont’d
o The most successful employer-generated car-pooling
involves large employers who have a continuing, highly
visible, well-staffed co-ordination program.
o However, for employers to make that commitment they

must believe that their costs will provide them with direct
benefits.
Carpooling is more likely to be effective if:
• Poolers are given preferential treatment over other

vehicles when travelling to their destinations on congested

roads and at busy intersections, and
• There is strict parking control at the destinations so that

poolers can be granted the privileges of paying less (or

nothing) and parking closer.
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Varying working hours
• The varying of working hours tends to take three forms in practice.

 Staggered hours: a number of large employers agree to stagger

their start/finish times by, say, 15 to 30 minutes, with no change to

the number of hours worked each day.
 Flexible working hours: the employees may start and finish work

each day at times of their own choice, as long as a core period

(necessary for meetings) is worked each day.
 Compressed working week: the employees work many more

hours per day for fewer days per week or per fortnight.
• All three forms of operation reduce the commuting traveler’s

journey time, but depend for their success on the goodwill and
support of the employer organizations.

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Technological Improvements
 Telecommunication technologies will reduce the
amount of travel by car during peak periods.
 The three measures having greatest potential to make

this happen are:

 Telecommuting/telework: the partial or total
substitution of telecommunications for the delay
journey-to/from-work by allowing employees to
work at locations those are remote from the
traditional office.

52
 …..cont’d
 Teleconference: is the substitution of telephone and
television communication for trips normally taken to meet
with several individuals or groups, usually for business
reasons.
 Teleshopping: involves the use of the telephone and

facsimile, and sometimes videotext, to shop and purchase

items without physically travelling to the place of sale

53
 ….cont’d

Charging for road use

 The efficiency of road network is improved by employing
the user-pay principle to make a car driver think very
carefully about whether or not to use the controlled roads.

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Rationing road space

 Road pricing mechanism favors the wealthy and

discriminates against less well-off people.
 Various fairer schemes based on lottery method (the odds-

and-evens system) whereby vehicles with number plates

ending in an odd numbers are allowed to use the
controlled roads on certain days of the week while even
numbered vehicles can use them on the others, and the
pooler system which allows vehicles with more than a
certain number of occupants to be exempt from any road
pricing/toll charges.

55
 ….cont’d

 In general, transport plans for urban areas do not solely

rely on any of the contrasting approaches described
above.
 Rather they rely on packages of the above approaches to

meet the needs of the environs within which the urban

area is located.

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Thank you!

April/2018

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