Economic evaluation of urban traffic congestion and relief measures

Abstract

Traffic congestion has become a critical concern when its detrimental effects are taken newlineinto account. Incremental delay, excessive fuel consumption, higher vehicle emission, newlineand air pollution are the negative impacts of traffic congestion. The basic outcome of newlinecongestion is the increase in travel time of the passengers. The increased travel time for newlinethe vehicles results in the delay and thereby to the congestion cost. The negative newlineimpacts of traffic congestion cause substantial economic losses to the road users and newlinetransport system. Hence there is need to estimate the cost associated with traffic newlinecongestion in order to provide an appropriate relief measure to traffic congestion and newlineeconomic analysis. newlineA great deal of literature on traffic congestion cost has drawn a general conclusion newlinethat delay cost is the most predominant cost of congestion and quantified as traffic newlinecongestion cost for both developed and developing countries. It is also point to note newlinethat engineering factors such as road geometry, traffic flow, and traffic operation are newlinemain reasons for traffic congestion. Around the world, congestion cost study has done newlineby taking the road network as a whole or a corridor. There are limited research work in newlinethe field of congestion cost evaluation for transport facilities such as midblock and newlineintersection. The congestion mitigation measures like the widening of the roadway and newlineprovision of an overpass and underpass may have to be provided at disaggregate level newlinefor links and intersections in the road network. This necessitates the estimation of newlinetraffic congestion cost for various transport facilities. This thesis work is concerned newlinewith concepts, theories, and methods related to the economic evaluation of traffic congestion at urban midblock and signalised intersection. newline