Traffic congestion
From:
Andrew Groom
Date:
2007 Jul 25 22:59 UTC
Short link
Hi Nicky,
Nicky Wagner wrote:
> Paul makes a good point that most people in Christchurch get around by
> car. And that in itself is the main part of the congestion issue. But
> buses are also useful to car drivers- if you average out the numbers of
> passengers on each bus (overall trips about 20 per bus) and then the
> average number of people in each car. One bus replaces 15+ cars on the
> road so it frees up the road for less congested travelling.
Well, yes, it would theoretically reduce congestion if cars were driven
by robots. However, cars are driven by human beings, and human beings
will modify their behaviour according to the circumstances. So, if you
reduce congestion on a given stretch of road at a given time, more
people will use that route and the congestion will return. You will have
achieved an increase in the number of people through that route, and
maybe a slight decrease in the amount of transport energy used per
person, but not reduced congestion or the total amount of transport
energy used.
Cheers, Andrew.
PS. On closer inspection of that monitoring report I linked to in the
earlier message, it appears that the percentage of trips by alternative
modes is based on census data, hence the long gap between figures.
However, isn't this an important enough figure to be surveying annually
by other means ?
.