Another Approach to Reduce Traffic Jam in Megacities

Daily gridlocks in megacities such as Beijing have worsened recently. There are several measures being taken by authorities to help alleviating traffic congestion in the cities. The traffic congestion in the city causes severe air pollution. During the Summer Olympics in 2008, hosted by Beijing, vehicles with odd or even number plates were banned to drive in Beijing on alternate days in order to reduce congestion and reducing air pollution in the cities.

Now, all cars are banned on the streets one day a week, based on their license plate number. However, some drivers evade the rules by purchasing a second vehicle.

According to news report, soon Beijing will start to sharply limit new vehicle registrations in an effort to reduce traffic jam in the city. The city will allow only 240,000 vehicles (which is about one- third of the vehicle registration this year) to be registered starting next year.

According to the report, Beijing now has 4.76 million vehicles as compared to 2.6 million in 2005. With the population of 17 million, it is expected that car ownership will reach 7 million in the year 2015 in case of a do nothing scenario.

States to Have Highway Monitoring Systems by 2016

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has issued a final rule requiring the states and U.S. territories to have real-time traffic monitoring programs operational by Nov. 8, 2016.

The rule says, under the “Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users” (SAFETEA-LU), the DOT is required to establish a “real-time system management information program” that provides the capability to monitor—in real-time—the traffic and travel conditions of the major highways of the United States and to share that data with state and local governments and with the travelling public.

The rule does not specify which type of monitoring technology to be used. According to the notices issued by the U.S. DOT, the rule establishes minimum parameters and requirements for states to make available and share traffic and travel conditions information via real-time information programs.

In addition, while the rule becomes effective Dec. 23, 2010, the establishment of the real-time information program for traffic and travel conditions reporting along Interstate system highways shall be completed by Nov. 8, 2014, while a real-time information program for traffic and travel conditions reporting along the state-designated metropolitan area routes of significance shall be completed by Nov. 8, 2016.

A system to monitor the traffic and travel conditions of the major highways of the United States and to share that information to improve the security of the surface transportation system is needed to address congestion problems; to support improved response to weather events and surface transportation incidents; and to facilitate national and regional highway traveller information, the notice says.

I think the rule is implemented to acknowledge the importance of real time information in solving traffic congestion and the importance of disseminating the information to travellers. Hope one day the importance of the real time traffic information is realised in other part of the world especially to those cities that are experiencing chronic traffic congestion during peak hours.

For further information, read States to Have Highway Monitoring Systems by 2016,

Hopefully, the congestion problem especially during major festive seasons will be the thing of the past.  Also read HERE for traffic congestion during festive season.

The system will also help in preventing this type of unnecessary traffic jam.

The system can also alleviate traffic congestion during incident on Penang Bridge.

The system can also be used in other part of the world to reduce traffic congestion.

Traffic Jam After the Chinese New Year Break

The trip from Sri Aman to Kota Semarahan usually takes around two and a half hours drive. However, last Tuesday, the trip was around three and a half hours drive due to severe traffic congestion from Bukit Genting to Serian Roundabout.






The distance between Bukit Genting and Serian Roundabout is less than 10 kilometers but the traffic jam on that stretch alone lasted almost one hour.


You will not believe that the traffic jam is not due to traffic accident. The traffic jam is also not due to any vehicle break down. Also, the traffic jam is not due to too many vehicles on the road on that particular day.

As a law-abiding citizen, we had to endure the traffic jam due to police road block just before the Serian bridge leading to the roundabout. On that particular day, the policemen checked each individual driving license of every drivers. If you still remember how to do math, if the policemen takes about 2 minutes to scrutinize one driving license of one driver, just imagine how much time that was needed for the other drivers waiting in the queue for his turn to be checked his driving license. Keep in mind that the number of vehicles plying the road on that day was just too many since most of the traffic users are returning from their CNY break.

So on that particular day, if you multiply the number of vehicles on the road by about one hour lost time, that is the amount of useless total time spend on the road due to traffic delays. If there are 2000 vehicles using the road at that particular time, the total lost time is about 2000 hours.

That is the reason why I had to travel for almost one hour for that short distance of road during that particular day.






Another view of vehicles queueing due to traffic incident on the road.

Traffic Jam During Festive Season

It is the time of the year again when there are a lot of traffic on major highways due to the upcoming Chinese New Year Festive season. Wish all drivers have a safe and pleasant trips.

Due to the unusually high number of traffic during all festive sesoans, some minor accidents do occur which can cause massive traffic jam along the way.

The latest traffic situation along major highway is as reported by this news article. Wish Happy Chinese New Year.

Traffic Jam

Traffic jam is a major issue in most city centers. With the increasing of number of vehicles on the road, the traffic jam is becoming more prevalent.

In order to alleviate traffic jam, the infrastructure needs to be expanded. For example, in the case of the Penang Bridge, the expansion of the bridge is near completion. The additional traffic lane plus a motorcycle lane was added to both sides of the bridge. I am confident that with the bridge expansion and removal of certain bottleneck areas along the bridge, traffic jam will be problems of the past. The newly refurbish bridge can carry the intended number of traffic until several years to come. After the completion of the second link to Penang, the Penang Bridge even can be congestion free for more years to come.

However, some incident can still cause the bridge to encounter traffic jam. According to this report, traffic jam occurred due to burning vehicle on the bridge. Traffic jam can also occur due to some incidents such as traffic accident along the bridge. As the bridge is being expanded to be more than three lanes in one direction, even though there is an accident, traffic still can flow through the bridge as compared to before where traffic just cannot flow because all lanes are being blocked by the vehicles involved in the accidents.

In order to overcome this kind of traffic jam, proper traffic management along the bridge need to be improved. The incident detection management system should be more efficient to detect the incident and immediately remove the incident in order to reduce the intensity of traffic jam.

Automatic Enforcement

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

According to this report, Malaysia is planning to install the Automated Enforcement System (AES) which will automatically detect offenders and send summons to them.

I totally agree to have the system being implemented at the selected black spot stretch of highways.

However, I am a little bit skeptical on the way the system will be implemented later. Based on previous experienced, the system will be totally imported from whichever country the system will win the government tender. Then, contractors will install the system at the designated location. The system is expected to run without any glitch for one year since the warranty period usually lasted for a year. Then after the end of the warranty period, problems are expected to appear where there seemed to be no technical expertise that could supervise or maintain the system causing the system likely to be abandoned again.

I hope that there are adequate feasibility study being carried out to study all aspects including the operation and maintenance of the system. Most importantly, the total cost of procuring the system should include future upgrade of the system.

Additionally, since the system is expected to utilize embedded inductive traffic sensor loop, ensure that the system can accommodate the unique characteristics of Malaysian drivers where during peak periods, one lane can become two lanes due to severe congestion. Also, hopefully the system can differentiate the differences between several consecutive cars as opposed to 18-wheeler trailers since the system are expected to categorize the vehicles in term of their wheel based and Malaysian drivers are notorious in term of tailgating other vehicles. Also, hopefully, the system can detect motorcycles maneuvering between other vehicles in the queue.

Traffic Jam in Shanghai

traffic jam -B
Originally uploaded by mari781008

This picture shows the interaction between different types of vehicles at a junction. Not sure what type of junction this is. Since it is a four way junction, I think it should be a traffic light junction. But, there are traffic conflict between crossing traffic causing a little bit of gridlock.

It seemed that traffic from all directions wanted to enter the junction. It must be a scary experience for the bicycle riders since they have to cross this junction. Usually, if the road is this big, bicycle is banned from using the road to prevent severe accidents from happening.

Recession Contributes to Less Congestion

Image via Wikipedia

According to the reports, congestion in the UK has dropped by almost a third in two years because of the recession. It is the first fall in congestion on motorways and trunk roads for 20 years. The drop is due to the rising unemployment and more people are saving money during this difficult time. Some are opting to work from home and thus the number of vehicles on the road is decreasing.

The findings also found that congestion is on the rise during weekend since more are taking holidays within the country instead of abroad. However, the situation is only temporary and once the economy is picking up the previous trend of increasing congestion will be getting worst because the lack of emphasis given to infrastructural development during the crisis period causes the existing system unable to cope with the increasing traffic demand.