Collaborative Research on Urban Auto Congestion

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The purpose of this project is to improve the modeling of urban traffic congestion, with an emphasis on the travel decisions made by commuters traveling by automobile. The ultimate goal is to construct a practical and theoretically sound simulation model in which road pricing and other policies can be evaluated. This research builds on earlier work in which roads are modeled as bottlenecks with fixed flow capacity. Six extensions of this model will be pursued: 1) Incorporating directly the arrival time preferences of commuters by modeling the interaction between workers in the city center. Staggered working hours and flexitime policies are considered as ways of spreading out commuting trips and reducing congestion, 2) Evaluating the gains from tolls and capacity expansion using more realistic models of traffic flow in which flow is density-dependent, 3) Investigation of the circumstances under which traffic flows become hypercongested, 4) Addition of a parking module to the bottleneck model to determine the effect of parking fees and walking time on trip time decisions and to improve the understanding of the interaction between parking congestion and moving-traffic congestion, 5) Analysis of simple road networks, 6) Evaluation of the welfare effects or route guidance systems, whereby real-time information and advice is provided to drivers on traffic conditions. This project is important because it will enhance our ability to plan and more effectively manage our transportation system.