Stopping the Vicious Circle of Congestion

There is a vicious circle of congestion that exists in cities and regions today and will only become exacerbated as people return to the workplace after the impacts of Covid-19 decline. 

What do I mean by a vicious circle of congestion? Well, the more traffic you have on the road the congestion problem increases and spills over from highways to arterial roads. These are the same roads that public transit buses often use (unless they have dedicated bus lanes), so buses often get delayed by the congestion, which impacts on the quality of service and schedule adherence. This impact on service delivery for public transport results in unhappy travelers who lose faith in public transport and will explore alternate options for their commute. In some cases, this leads people back to private vehicles, increasing road traffic that caused their decision in the first place. It also has a detrimental effect on the public transit operator who loses revenue, cannot invest in infrastructure and may often reduce routes or service that can impact users who truly rely on public transport as their main mode of transport.  Congestion gets worse, commute times go up, customer satisfaction goes down, people change their modal choices and that, in turn, impacts congestion.   

It’s an oversimplification of a global problem, but one that cities are having to address. With the addition of Covid-19 impacting traveler choices, many cities are experiencing an increase in single use private vehicles and congestion, while public transport operators are seeing ridership levels down by up to 80%. 

So how do we break this vicious cycle of congestion and how do cities take control of their transport networks? 

First, the city or region must realize that they must manage the public transport services, the private mobility service providers and the road network in a coherent and holistic manner. Realizing that the different networks form a symbiotic relationship acknowledges the impact that one network can have on another. A practical example of this was when a public transport bus caught fire on the Sydney Harbor bridge in September 2016. Due to lack of communication, planning and integration between private and public transport operators, further chaos resulted, including lines of thousands of people at Circular Quay looking to get ferries away from the area and across the bay. Looking ahead in a proactive manner, Transport for New South Wales implemented their Integrated Congestion Management Program (ICMP) to collate data across all available transport modes to provide a wide-lens view into the operations of the entire region. The ICMP strives to break down data silos and allow for confidence and efficiency in decision-making.  

Secondly, when cities start to understand the current demand, they need to look at methodologies to change that demand on infrastructure to ensure it doesn’t always outstrip the available capacity. There are many methods to achieve this from tolling on the road networks and congestion zone pricing to disincentivizing suburban-urban drivers by offering price differentials on public transport for peak and off-peak times. These solutions have been classed as draconian by some commentators, and their wide-ranging and simplistic approach to achieve positive outcomes for the various networks is measurable. Take London for example, after initial push back from residents and businesses the Congestion Zone achieved marked reductions in traffic in the center of London, decreased pollutants and freed up the city to help improve public transport service delivery.   

Today we are seeing increased use of dynamic and personalized incentivization.  

Cubic Interactive is a platform solution connecting public agencies with their travelers and commercial organizations to incentivize behaviors that the agency needs to achieve. By offering targeted incentives to specific travelers, Miami-Dade County shifted the demand on their network to reduce the expected demand to something that the current infrastructure can accommodate. In today’s world of Covid-19, being able to shift the peak for public transport to avoid overcrowding is key. This solution for incentivization is showing benefits already for Miami-Dade, where over 60% of travelers using the Miami Go App have signed up for this loyalty program.  

Third, to optimize demand, the local agency, authority or city must manage the number of stakeholders who are providing mobility in the region. Private Mobility Service Providers such as bike share, scooter share, ride-hailing, demand responsive transport and car share have a critical role to play in augmenting the mobility services provided by the public transport network. They need to become a feeder network to drive use of the public transport system, as well as augmenting areas where transit is sparse. 

Mobility as a Service (MaaS) and Mobility on Demand (MOD) play a vital role in our cities bringing together public and private modes to offer complete end to end journeys for their citizens. However, the city needs to own and manage a platform that offers an agnostic solution to deliver equity across all stakeholders and enable MaaS and MOD to function effectively. The local agency must have the ability to regulate when and where private mobility service providers can operate in order to offer a balanced level of mobility services, that drives and connects consumers to public transport systems.

Travelers must have an optimum suite of services that enable equitable access to all areas of the city. This MaaS Platform should be an open eco-system that enables private providers and MaaS Operators to simplify their access to the available ridership in a region and allow the planning, booking, payment and execution of complete public and private journeys, while not impacting the public transport network or overstressing the holistic transport network.  

Lastly, we’ve discussed how a city or region must manage the holistic transport network at a macro level, but also need to consider the micro or street level. Management of corridors and intersections is critical to keeping the private vehicle operator, the public and private transport operators, and the cyclist and pedestrians safe and moving.  

Investing in corridor and intersection management is the foundation to an allowable volume-to-capacity ratio and a high safety and confidence level in active transportation users. We all want to increase traveler confidence as drivers, cyclists and pedestrians hit the streets again, so partnering with the traveling public and letting them know of the investment is one step in the right direction.  

Artificial Intelligence and machine learning are driving intersection management solutions like Trafficware and GRIDSMART to deliver optimized flows within the city. When combined with real-time data from public transport providers and using advanced data analytics (as in the Cubic NextBus solution), a city is able to take vehicle locations and automatically change signal priority optimizing the flow of public transportation, ensuring the bus makes its scheduled stop and that the passenger arrives to their destination as planned. 

The city of Merida, Yucatan (Mexico) recently partnered with Cubic to implement solution across 60 intersections and on 1,500 buses. Real-time bus positioning information will be used to give signal priority to transit vehicles. By utilizing NextBus’ predictive bus stop arrival software, the system will analyze whether the transit vehicle is ahead or behind schedule and appropriately manage the signal, ensuring the transit vehicle maintains its schedule. 

So how do you break the vicious cycle of congestion and take control of mobility? Let’s recap.  

• Cities have to take control of all transport networks holistically by way of breaking down organizational silos, sharing data and creating a common operational view of mobility.  

• They can manage demand by incentivizing public and private travelers to change travel patterns.  

• They have to rebuild traveler trust by delivering a better mobility experience and providing incentives to travel.  

• Planners must embrace all modes of mobility to deliver equitable mobility solutions across the region, creating an agnostic open MaaS Ecosystem.  

• They have to drive traveler confidence by ensuring the mobility network works for the individual user and the city as a whole.  

• Cities need to utilize the vast quantities of data into actionable insights and use them in a proactive manner to optimize the network and drive efficiencies.  

• They must return to basics with a clear foundation of multimodal management by creating a common dialogue from all stakeholders – from the mayor to the traveler – that brings everyone’s needs into the development of a workable resilient network.  

Only then will a city and the individual traveler in that city be in complete control of their mobility.