Urban transportation projects that increase road capacity can lead to generated traffic that reduces the projects' congestion reduction benefits. Around half of new road capacity is typically filled within a decade by diverted and induced traffic. Ignoring generated traffic can overestimate projects' economic benefits and underestimate environmental impacts. To truly reduce congestion, strategies are needed that reduce the equilibrium point for congestion, such as congestion pricing, parking pricing, and improving alternative transportation options through land use and transit improvements.
Urban transportation projects that increase road capacity can lead to generated traffic that reduces the projects' congestion reduction benefits. Around half of new road capacity is typically filled within a decade by diverted and induced traffic. Ignoring generated traffic can overestimate projects' economic benefits and underestimate environmental impacts. To truly reduce congestion, strategies are needed that reduce the equilibrium point for congestion, such as congestion pricing, parking pricing, and improving alternative transportation options through land use and transit improvements.
Urban transportation projects that increase road capacity can lead to generated traffic that reduces the projects' congestion reduction benefits. Around half of new road capacity is typically filled within a decade by diverted and induced traffic. Ignoring generated traffic can overestimate projects' economic benefits and underestimate environmental impacts. To truly reduce congestion, strategies are needed that reduce the equilibrium point for congestion, such as congestion pricing, parking pricing, and improving alternative transportation options through land use and transit improvements.
Urban transportation projects that increase road capacity can lead to generated traffic that reduces the projects' congestion reduction benefits. Around half of new road capacity is typically filled within a decade by diverted and induced traffic. Ignoring generated traffic can overestimate projects' economic benefits and underestimate environmental impacts. To truly reduce congestion, strategies are needed that reduce the equilibrium point for congestion, such as congestion pricing, parking pricing, and improving alternative transportation options through land use and transit improvements.
Dr. Muhammad Adnan Rebound Effect • A Rebound Effect (also called a Takeback Effect or Offsetting Behavior) refers to increased consumption that results from actions that increase efficiency and reduce consumer costs (Alexander 1997; Herring 1998; Gorham 2009; UKERC 2007).
• Example, a home insulation program that reduces heat losses by 50% does not usually result in a full 50% reduction in energy consumption, because residents of insulated homes find that they can afford to keep their homes warmer. As a result, they reinvest a portion of potential energy savings on comfort. The difference between the 50% potential energy savings and the actual savings is the Rebound Effect.
• Example 2, strategies that increase fuel efficiency or reduce traffic congestion, and therefore reduce the per-mile cost of driving, tend to increase total vehicle mileage. Similarly, strategies that make driving seem safer tend to encourage somewhat more “intensive” driving (i.e., faster, closer spacing between vehicles, more distractions) than what would occur if vehicle use appears riskier to drivers. Understanding Rebound Effects • HOW WE DRIVE; Roads Are Safer; Cars Are Safer. Drivers? Forget It. • Dr. Evans, who is the president of the International Traffic Medicine Association, contends that so-called safety devices in cars, particularly air bags, have had an insidious and deadly effect on driver behavior.
• He said that since the mid-60’s, American have spent billions of dollar seeking the perfect technological fix to prevent fatalities. Their solutions, the air bag and other “passive” devices, have only compounded the problem. Other industrial nations, Dr. Evans said, have pursued a more balance approach -- better and early driver education, stricter enforcement of traffic and seat-belt laws, use of cameras to detect speeding and red-light running and campaigns against aggressive driving.
• Dr. Evans said that the air bag and other safety devices had the same effect collectively as advances in cardiac medicine. Angioplasty and bypass surgery have not decreased the rate of death from heat disease, he said and might have convinced people that there is a technological “cure” for the unhealthy behaviors that lead to heart attacks.
• “We see American collectively driving a couple of miles an hour faster because of a false sense of security,” he said. “And that collective increase in speed more than washes away the alleged benefit of air bags.” Transportation Rebound Effects • Generated Traffic:
Generated traffic is the additional vehicle travel that results from a
road improvement. Congested roads cause people to defer trips that are not urgent, choose alternative destinations and modes, and forego avoidable trips.
Generated traffic consists of diverted travel (shifts in time and
route) and induced travel (increased total motor vehicle travel). In some situations, highway expansion stimulates sprawl (automobile- dependent, urban fringe land use patterns), further increasing per capita vehicle travel. If some residents would otherwise choose less sprawled housing locations, their additional per capita vehicle travel can be considered to be induced by the roadway capacity expansion. Examples • Below are examples of decisions that generate traffic:
• Consumers choose closer destinations when roads are congested and
further destinations when traffic flows more freely. “I want to try the new downtown restaurant but traffic is a mess now. Let’s just pick up something at the local deli.” This also affects long-term decisions. “We’re looking for a house within 40-minute commute time of downtown. With the new highway open, we’ll considering anything as far as Midvalley.”
• Travelers shift modes to avoid driving in congestion. “The post office is only five blocks away and with congestion so bad this time of day, I may as well walk there.”
• Longer trips may seem cost effective when congestion is light but not when congestion is heavy. “We’d save $5 on that purchase at the Wal- Mart across town, but it’s not worth fighting traffic so let’s shop nearby.” • Traffic grows when roads are uncongested, but the growth rate declines as congestion develops, reaching a self-limiting equilibrium (indicated by the curve becoming horizontal). If capacity increases, traffic grows until it reaches a new equilibrium. This additional peak-period vehicle travel is called “generated traffic.” Types of Generated Traffic • Roadway expansion impacts tend to include:
• First order. Reduced congestion delay, increased traffic
speeds. • Second order. Changes in travel time, route, destination and mode to take advantage of the increased speeds. • Third order. Land use changes. More dispersed, automobile-oriented development. • Fourth order. Overall increase in automobile dependency. Degraded walking and cycling conditions, reduced public transit service quality and reduced respect for alternative modes. Case Studies • Several studies using various analysis techniques have examined the amount of traffic generated by specific projects (Goodwin 1996). Their findings are summarized below:
• Cervero (2003a & b) used data on freeway capacity expansion,
traffic volumes, demographic and geographic factors from California between 1980 and 1994. He estimated the long-term elasticity of VMT with respect to traffic speed to be 0.64, meaning that a 10% increase in speed results in a 6.4% increase in VMT, and that about a quarter of this results from changes in land use (e.g., additional urban fringe development). He estimated that about 80% of additional roadway capacity is filled with additional peak-period travel, about half of which (39%) can be considered the direct result of the added capacity. • Time-series travel data for various roadway types indicates an elasticity of vehicle travel with respect to lane miles of 0.5 in the short run, and 0.8 in the long run (Noland 2001). This means that half of increased roadway capacity is filled with added travel within about 5 years, and that 80% of the increased roadway capacity will be filled eventually. Urban roads, which tend to be most congested, had higher elasticity values than rural roads, as would be expected due to the greater congestion and latent demand in urban areas.
• A study by leading U.K. transportation economists concludes that the
elasticity of travel volume with respect to travel time is -0.5 in the short term and -1.0 over the long term (SACTRA 1994). This means that reducing travel time on a roadway by 20% typically increases traffic volumes by 10% in the short term and 20% over the long term. Portion of new capacity Absorbed by Induced Traffic • This illustrates traffic growth on a road after its capacity increases. About half of added capacity is typically filled with new traffic within a decade of construction. (Based on cited studies) Wrong estimation of benefits • In a case study of a proposed roadway expansion project in Copenhagen, Denmark, Næss, Nicolaisen and Strand (2012) found that ignoring a portion of induced traffic effects significantly affected cost-benefit results: results show lower travel time savings, more adverse environmental impacts and a considerably lower benefit-cost ratio when induced traffic is partly accounted for than when it is ignored.
• They conclude that, “By exaggerating the economic benefits of road capacity increase and underestimating its negative effects, omission of induced traffic can result in overallocation of public money on road construction and correspondingly less focus on other ways of dealing with congestion and environmental problems in urban areas.”
• This is not to suggest that increasing road capacity provides no benefits, but Generated Traffic affects the nature of these benefits. It changes congestion reduction benefits into mobility benefits, offset by any increase in external costs associated with the induced traffic (Ramsey 2005). What to do for solving congestion? • In order to truly reduce urban traffic congestion it is necessary to reduce the point of congestion equilibrium. Some types of TDM strategies do this (Congestion Reduction Strategies).
· Pricing strategies with higher charges for driving under urban-peak conditions, such as Congestion Pricing and variable Parking Pricing.
· Strategies that increase the price of driving, such as Parking Pricing and Distance-Based Charges.
· Strategies that make alternative modes more competitive, such as HOV Priority, Transit Improvements and Commuter Financial Incentives.
· Strategies that improve land use Accessibility, such as Location Efficient Development and Smart Growth.
A single TDM strategy is unlikely to have a major effect on overall regional traffic congestion, but a comprehensive TDM program that includes a combination of disincentives to peak- period driving and improvements to alternative modes may reduce the point of congestion equilibrium. A TDM program that is implemented instead of a road capacity expansion project will avoid generating traffic, since congestion levels stay the same. Generated Traffic Impacts
