Cool Traffic Modeling Program Says "Yes" to Congestion Pricing

SF City Planner, Billy Charleton, is interviewed on KQED Radio as he describes using SF Champ 3.0, an unusually sophisicated traffic modelling program which contains census data on 750,000 SF residents. In each scenario he runs, the simulation shows that traffic congestion is reduced with the introduction of congestion pricing. Critics of congestion pricing, however, point to London which charges about $16 to enter downtown during business hours. There, retail sales have declined since congestion pricing started.

Asha Weinstein Agrawal, of San Jose State's Dept. of Urban & Regional Planning, conducted a survey of 2700 California residents. 63 percent of respondents say that people with less fuel efficient vehicles should pay higher vehicle registration fees. This leads Agrawal to believe that people would be amenable to congestion pricing.

Transportation Seminar and Cookie Time 9 November: A Macroscopic Approach to Urban Traffic

This week's talk, given by CEE PhD student Nikolas Geroliminis (CV in pdf format), approaches a description of vehicular movement in urban areas on a macroscopic scale. Geroliminis has formed his conclusions using both simulation and real data from metropolitan areas (here is a link to a 4-hour simulation by Geroliminis and Prof. Daganzo). Here is the abstract:

Various theories have been proposed to describe vehicular traffic movement in cities on an aggregate level. They fall short to create a macroscopic model with variable inputs and outputs that could describe a rush hour dynamically. My dissertation work shows that a Macroscopic Fundamental Diagram (MFD) relating production (the product of average flow and network length) and accumulation (the product of average density and network length) exists for neighborhoods of cities in the order of 5-10km2. It also demonstrates that conditional on accumulation large networks behave predictably and independently of their Origin-Destination tables. These results are based on analysis using simulation of large scale city networks and real data from urban metropolitan areas. The real experiment uses a combination of fixed detectors and floating vehicle probes as sensors. The analysis also reveals a fixed relation between the space-mean flows on the whole network and the trip completion rates, which dynamically measure accessibility. This work also demonstrates that the dynamics of the rush hour can be predicted quite accurately without the knowledge of disaggregated data. This MFD is applied to develop perimeter control strategies based on neighborhood accumulation and speeds and improve accessibility without the uncertainty inherent in today’s forecast-based approaches. The looking-for-parking phenomenon that extends the average trip length is also integrated in the dynamics of the rush hour

The seminar will be in 240 Bechtel at 4:00 and will be preceded by Cookie Time in the ITS Library (4th Floor McLaughlin) at 3:30. Please Note: Cookie Time will still be held regardless of other ITS closures for Veterans' Day

New SWARM Report Does Not Concern Honey

A new study out of Portland State University ITS (TRB paper found here in doc format) discusses the efficacy of the System-Wide Adaptive Ramp Metering (SWARM) system in the Portland, Oregon area. SWARM replaces older fixed-rate metering systems that remain static regardless of the prevailing traffic conditions. This means SWARM should be sensitive to both regular fluctuations as well as non-recurrent changes. Wikipedia has a reasonable sketch of ramp metering here. Here is the abstract:

A System-Wide Adaptive Ramp Metering (SWARM) system is being implemented in the Portland metropolitan area, replacing the previous pre-timed ramp-metering system. SWARM has been deployed on six major corridors and operates during the morning and afternoon peak hours. This study entails a “before” and “after” evaluation of the benefit of the new SWARM system as compared to the pre-timed system using the existing data, surveillance and communications infrastructure. In particular, the objective of this study is to quantify the system-wide benefits in terms of savings in delay, emissions and fuel consumption, and safety improvements on and off the freeway due to the implementation of the SWARM system. A pilot study was conducted for two weeks on a 7-mile freeway corridor in an attempt to develop a strategic design for the future regional-level study. This paper discusses the selection process of the study corridor, experimental design, and the results that were obtained from the pilot study.

Caltrans has also implemented such a system (pdf format) in the Los Angeles area in 2000 and earlier (in pdf, see pages 12-13 for an overview of the Irvine SWARM).

38 Gallons of Fuel Wasted Sitting In Traffic

That's the nationwide average -- 38 gallons -- of wasted fuel per driver stuck in traffic each year. This is according to the Texas Transportation Institute's recently released 2007 Annual Urban Mobility Report. The average for San Jose drivers is 54 gallons per year. The study's authors, Tim Lomax and David Schrank, estimate that traffic congestion cost the U.S. $78 billion annually from 4.2 billion hours in lost productivity and 2.9 billion gallons of wasted fuel.

US DOT announces who gets the Urban Partnership money

The U.S. Department of Transportation announced today the five metropolitan areas to whom they awarded the Urban Partnership Agreements (UPAs). The winners are:

• New York
  
• Seattle
  
• The Miami and Ft. Lauderdale metropolitan area
  
• The Minneapolis and St. Paul area
  
• San Francisco

Each of the winners will still need to submit traffic studies for their respective projects before receiving the money. Twenty six cities applied for the the program's funding. New York's $354 million will go towards congestion pricing in Manhattan. Seattle will use its $139 million to charge tolls on the Highway 520 floating bridge. Miami's $63 million will go towards installing variably priced toll lanes on I-95 between Miami and Ft. Lauderdale. Minneapolis will spend use it's $133 million to add High Occupancy Toll lanes to I-35. San Francisco's $159 million will help establish a congestion pricing plan for the downtown area.

"Berkeley study: car pool lanes are effective"

ITS Berkeley in the news. The recent findings by Mike Cassidy and Carlos Daganzo on how HOV lanes affect traffic flow are summarized in a local ABC News report.