Table 10 - uploaded by Todd Litman
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This report investigates the role that public transit can play in reducing traffic congestion and achieving other transportation improvement objectives. It evaluates criticism that urban transit investments are ineffective at reducing traffic congestion and wasteful. This is a companion to the report, Smart Transportation Investments: Reevaluating...
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This chapter deals with the second effect in urban transport systems evaluation: heterogeneous user scheduling preferences. Through paradoxical effects it is shown how even ignoring congestion one can get counterintuitive results because of the presence of these preferences. In particular, “activity scheduling” is a complex process that needs to be...
Summary This report investigates claims that highway capacity expansion is a cost effective and desirable solution to urban traffic congestion problems. It identifies errors in proponents' analysis that overestimate the congestion reduction impacts and economic benefits of roadway capacity expansion, overlook negative impacts of induced travel, and...
Non-recurrent congestion or incidents are detrimental to the operability and efficiency of busy urban transport networks. There exist multiple automatic incident detection algorithms (AIDAs) to remotely detect the occurrence of an incident in highway or freeway scenarios; however, very little research has been performed to automatically detect inci...
Public transportation becomes an indispensable concept to deal with especially in major cities where traffic congestion seen, and people even may spend several hours to reach their routine daily destinations. In this case, some of the reasons leading to transportation problems can be stated; in terms of population sizes, especially big cities compr...
This report investigates the role that public transit can play in reducing traffic congestion and achieving other transportation improvement objectives. It evaluates criticism that urban transit investments are ineffective at reducing traffic congestion and wasteful.
Citations
... The number of vehicles per square area, also known as vehicle intensity, tends to be a good indicator due to its valuable accuracy in predicting short-term traffic flow (Litman, 2006). Different studies of short-term traffic flow prediction approaches have used various variable features or parameters such as surveillance images to determine vehicle density thus predict traffic flow (Celikoglu, 2013;Lisangan & Sumarta, 2017;Silvano & Bang, 2016;Wild, 1997). ...
Traffic flow mismanagement is a significant challenge in all countries especially in crowded cities. An alternative solution is to utilize smart technologies to predict traffic flow. In this study, frequency spectrum describing traffic sound characteristics is used as an indicator to predict the next five-minute vehicle density. Sound frequency and vehicle intensity are collected during a thirteen-hour data gathering. The collected sound intensity and frequency are then used to learn three machine-learning models - support vector machine, artificial neural network, and random forest and to predict vehicle intensity. It was found out that the performances of the three models based on root-mean-square-error values are 12.97, 16.01, and 10.67, respectively. These initial and satisfactory results pave a new way to predict traffic flow based on traffic sound characteristics which may serve as a better alternative to conventional features.
... In recent years, Internet of Things technologies have been developing significantly [36,37]. Sensors can easily be installed on smart devices, such as electric vehicles and cell phones, and they usually have the ability to connect to Internet. ...
Bridge health monitoring is a very important part for infrastructure maintenance. Traditional bridge health monitoring techniques require sensors to be installed on bridges, which is costly and time consuming. In order to resolve this issue, new damage detection techniques by installing sensors on passing-by vehicles on bridges and considering vehicle bridge interaction (VBI) have gained much attention from researchers in last decade. In this paper, a novel damage detection technique utilizing data collected from sensors mounted on a large number of passing-by vehicles is developed. First, an approach based on Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs) is introduced. Then, an improved version based on MFCCs and principal component analysis (PCA) taking advantage of mobile sensor network is proposed to overcome the deficiencies in the approaches that utilize single measurement. In the improved approach, the acceleration data is first collected from all the vehicles within a certain period. Then, the transformed features that are related to bridge damage are extracted from MFCCs and PCA. The damage can be identified by comparing the distributions of these transformed features. The results from the numerical analysis and lab experiments show that the approach not only identifies the existence of the damage, but also provides useful information about severity.
... Une politique de mobilité durable doit viser une approche intégrée de la planification des systèmes de transport et de l'aménagement du territoire, et ce afin de considérer l'ensemble des enjeux de santé publique touchant ces deux secteurs d'intervention (Litman, 2013b;Tremblay-Racicot et Mercier, 2014;Litman, 2016;Rode et collab., 2008). Des études mentionnent que les interventions reliées au système de transport sont des facteurs importants qui déterminent la forme urbaine (Rode et collab., 2008;Litman, 2013b). ...
... Des études mentionnent que les interventions reliées au système de transport sont des facteurs importants qui déterminent la forme urbaine (Rode et collab., 2008;Litman, 2013b). Sans une coordination et une intégration des actions entre les autorités chargées de l'aménagement du territoire et celles liées au système de transport, les objectifs de mobilité durable seront difficiles à atteindre (Litman, 2013b;Tremblay-Racicot et Mercier, 2014;Litman, 2016;Rode et collab., 2008). Ce type d'approche est particulièrement utile dans les grands centres urbains. ...
L’Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ) se réjouit de l’initiative du ministère des Transports, de la Mobilité durable et de l’Électrification des transports (MTMDET) d’adopter, d’ici avril 2018, une Politique de mobilité durable qui intègre les principes du développement durable dans les systèmes de transport et qui accorde une place importante à la santé, à la sécurité et au bien-être de la population.
L’Institut est convaincu que les choix effectués au moment de la planification des initiatives en transport et en aménagement du territoire peuvent avoir des effets importants sur la santé, la sécurité et la mobilité de la population, une perspective qui trouve écho dans la récente Politique gouvernementale de prévention en santé (PGPS) du ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux.
... ). Par ailleurs, l'engagement des pouvoirs publics dans le développement de bâtiments intégrés à des réseaux de transport collectif et actif peut servir de cas exemplaires et amener le secteur privé à adopter des pratiques semblables. Ainsi, lors de la construction d'édifices publics des critères de localisation et d'aménagement devraient être pris en compte : accès aux transports en commun, stationnement pour bicyclette et vestiaires, projet à une distance de marche d'au plus 800 mètres d'une gare de train, d'un train de banlieue ou d'une station de métro et de 400 mètres d'un arrêt d'autobus, de tramway ou d'un stationnement d'autos-partage existant -ou planifié (Conseil du bâtiment durable du Canada, 2014).Une structure de gouvernance centrale permettrait de pallier plusieurs des lacunes observées en favorisant une planification intégrée des systèmes de transports et de l'aménagement du territoire, au Québec(Litman, 2016). Cela étant dit, il convient de souligner que des efforts ont été faits notamment dans la région de Montréal par l'adoption du Plan métropolitain d'aménagement et de développement (PMAD) de la Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal (CMM) (Roy-Baillargeon, 2016) et dans la réorganisation des organismes de transport collectif dans la région de Montréal par la Loi modifiant principalement l'organisation et la gouvernance du transport collectif dans la région métropolitaine de). ...
Ce mémoire s’inscrit dans le cadre de la consultation La sécurité routière : ça nous concerne tous!, menée par la Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec et le ministère des Transports, de la Mobilité durable et de l'Électrification des transports. L’INSPQ y constate que le bilan routier s’est beaucoup amélioré depuis le milieu des années 70. Toutefois, les données les plus récentes suggèrent que les acquis sont fragiles. Il est donc important de poursuivre les efforts pour que le Québec se rapproche des pays les plus performants en matière de bilan routier.
Pour y arriver, l’Institut propose des mesures concernant la promotion de comportements visés par le Code de la sécurité routière, les infrastructures et l’offre de moyens de transports collectifs et actifs pour réduire la dépendance à l’automobile.
... Conventional project evaluation also tends to undervalue public transportation service quality improvement benefits (Litman 2007b). High quality, grade separated public transit attracts people who would otherwise drive on congested roadways, which reduces the point of congestion equilibrium (the level of congestion at which travelers reduce their peak-period trips). ...
This report discusses factors to consider when evaluating transportation economic stimulation strategies. Transportation investments can have large long-term economic, social and environmental impacts. Expanding urban highways tends to stimulate motor vehicle travel and sprawl, exacerbating future transport problems and threatening future economic productivity. Improving alternative modes (walking and cycling conditions, and public transit service) tends to reduce total motor vehicle traffic and associated costs, providing additional long-term economic savings and benefits. Increasing transport system efficiency tends to create far more jobs than those created directly by infrastructure investments. Domestic automobile industry subsidies are ineffective at stimulating employment or economic development. Public policies intended to support domestic automobile sales could be economically harmful in the long run if they increase future energy consumption and transportation system inefficiency.
... This paper investigates claims that highway expansion is a cost effective way to reduce urban traffic congestion, and evaluates the role that roadway capacity expansion should play in improving transportation. This is a companion to the report Smart Transportation Investments II: Reevaluating The Role Of Public Transit For Improving Urban Transportation (Litman, 2006b). ...
... It may be efficient to use some toll revenue to improve travel options on the corridor, such as subsidizing vanpool and bus service, contributing to construction of a rail-transit line, or supporting commute trip reduction programs (VTPI, 2006) if doing so reduces peak-period automobile travel demand and therefore highway congestion (Litman, 2006b). Many factors affect the degree to which such services reduce congestion, including their quality and speed, the ease of accessing destinations (such as worksites) by these modes, and community attitudes about their use. ...
... Public transit improvements can provide many benefits in addition to congestion reduction (Litman, 2006b). Virtually any corridor with enough travel demand to experience congestion has enough to support high quality vanpooling and public transit services. ...
Summary This report investigates claims that highway capacity expansion is a cost effective and desirable solution to urban traffic congestion problems. It identifies errors in proponents' analysis that overestimate the congestion reduction impacts and economic benefits of roadway capacity expansion, overlook negative impacts of induced travel, and ignore more cost effective alternatives. This is a companion to the report, Smart Transportation Investments II: Reevaluating The Role Of Public Transit For Improving Urban Transportation.
The American Public Transportation Association’s use of a “land use multiplier” as part of its methodology for calculating greenhouse gas reduction from transit has increased interest in methodologies that quantify the impact of transit systems on land use and vehicle miles traveled. Such transit leverage, however, is frequently evaluated for urbanized areas, although transit systems serve only a small proportion of those areas. If transit leverage is stronger in areas closer to transit stations, studies based on larger geographies may underestimate land use and travel behavior effects in transit-served areas. A geographic information system–based data set was developed to understand better the leverage effects associated with the mature and extensive Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority transit system in areas proximate to its stations throughout Metropolitan Boston. The region was divided into the subregion that was transit-proximate (within a half mile of a rapid transit station or key bus route), the portion that was commuter rail–proximate, and the remaining 93.3% of the region that was not proximate to high-frequency transit. Households in the transit-proximate subregion were significantly more likely to commute by transit (and walking or biking), less likely to own a car, and drove fewer miles than households in the non-transit-served areas of the region. Commuter rail–proximate areas, although denser than the region as a whole, exhibited more driving and car ownership than regional averages. Given these spatial and modal variations, future efforts to understand transit leverage should separately evaluate land use and travel effects by mode and proximity to transit stations.
Several recent articles criticize urban rail transit investments on grounds that they are ineffective at reducing traffic congestion and financially wasteful. This commentary challenges that view. It summarizes some of the findings of more detailed analyses of transit benefits and suggests that there is abundant evidence that high quality, grade-separated transit does reduce urban traffic congestion, and that urban transit improvements can be cost effective investments when all economic impacts are considered.
