Talk:Traffic congestion

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--NicholasJones 15:51, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

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

Contents 1 Private highway 2 The notorious "Atlanta Gas Station Shortcut." 3 Atlanta, Georgia have an average commute of 35 minutes. 4 1.5% road length expansion example 5 Cleaning Up 6 Increasing speed limits to increase the flow of cars 7 Kerner (European) traffic congestion theory 8 decongestion

[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)