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Title:

Nature and Causes of Urban Traffic Congestion: Case Study of London

Accession Number:

01366469

Record Type:

Component

Abstract:

This paper presents an empirical approach to investigate the nature and causes of urban traffic congestion. Compared with freeways, urban network traffic is relatively less studied due to its complexity and availability of required data. This paper introduces the data resources the authors have and the research they have been conducting to understand the characteristic of urban traffic in Greater London Area, UK. Our traffic data include journey time estimates from Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system and GPS (Global Positioning System) equipped vehicles; traffic counts, incident records from London Traffic Information System (LTIS), and weather information from UK MET office. With the traffic data, the authors introduce the use of visualization to retrieve the spatio-temporal feature of urban traffic. We also present the use of linear regression model to diagnose observed congestion and attribute them to different causes. In particular, they distinguish the observed congestion into two main components: one due to recurrent factors and the other due to non-recurrent factors. The methodologies are illustrated through a case study of Greater London Area. It is found that about 15% of the observed congestion in the region is due to non-recurrent factors such as accidents, unplanned roadwork, special events, and strikes. The study presented herein will be valuable for transport policy evaluation and appraisal.

Supplemental Notes:

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ABJ30 Urban Transportation Data and Information Systems

Monograph Accession #:

01362476

Report/Paper Numbers:

12-2619

Language:

English

Corporate Authors:

Transportation Research Board

500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001 United States

Authors:

Chow, Andy H F
Santacreu, Alexandre
Tsapakis, Ioannis
Tanaksaranond, Garavig
Cheng, Tao

Pagination:

22p

Publication Date:

2012

Conference:

Transportation Research Board 91st Annual Meeting

Location: Washington DC, United States
Date: 2012-1-22 to 2012-1-26
Sponsors: Transportation Research Board

Media Type:

Digital/other

Features:

Figures; References; Tables

Identifier Terms:

Transport for London

Geographic Terms:

Greater London

Subject Areas:

Data and Information Technology; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; I70: Traffic and Transport; I73: Traffic Control

Source Data:

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2012 Paper #12-2619

Files:

TRIS, TRB

Created Date:

Feb 8 2012 5:10PM