Fighting traffic jams in the world: effective ways

We live in an era of galloping urbanization, when cities expand, and increase their population every day. At the same time, the number of vehicles on city streets is increasing: cars, trucks, buses and trams. But very often urban roads are not designed for such powerful traffic flows. How do cities solve this problem and how does the traffic congestion take place?

Traffic jam - what is it?

A traffic jam (or traffic congestion) is an excessive accumulation of vehicles on a certain section of the road. At the same time, road users move at a very low speed or do not move at all.

Interestingly, according to the rules of the road rules in our country, we do not have the concept of "congestion" or "traffic jam" in the legal field. Indirectly, about jams, there is only one point of the Rules - paragraph 13.2. However, in 2006 in the territory of the Russian Federation it was decided to introduce a new traffic sign (temporary), warning drivers about congestion on the highway.

Fighting traffic jams in the world is one of the global urban tasks. After all, the presence of permanent traffic jams in the city badly affects its functionality, it can often even paralyze the normal life of the city system. After all, if you imagine a city in the form of a large organism, its ways of communication and roads can be compared to the arteries of the human body. Therefore, the municipalities of the world's largest cities pay much attention to this problem, inventing new ways to deal with traffic jams.

Street traffic jams - a bit of history

This is hard to believe, but the problem of road congestion has appeared for a long time. The traffic jams took place in the cities already in the XVII century, and these were coach jams! It was at this time on the city streets there were many carriages, with which narrow streets were difficult to cope with.

The second wave of road congestion in large cities comes at the end of the 19th century, when a type of public transport appeared like a tram. For some time the problem of traffic jams was solved in the 20-30s of the 20th century in connection with the construction of metro systems in large cities. However, in the second half of the twentieth century, this problem again makes itself felt and to this day the fight against traffic jams in the world remains an urgent task.

The largest traffic congestion in history

History recorded many examples of large urban traffic jams. We bring to your attention the three most famous of them:

1. New York, 1969. Cork length of 70 (!) Kilometers. Reason: a major rock festival in the city.
2. Chicago, 2011 year. There was a real collapse of the city's transport system, traffic jams continued up to 12 hours. Reason: a snowstorm.
3. São Paulo, 2013 year. This is still the most grandiose traffic jam in history, it reached a length of 309 kilometers!

The main reason is the human factor

The reasons for this phenomenon are in fact very many. However, the most important reason for the traffic jam is the human factor. On the road very often you can meet personalities in the style of "and I'll slip through!". As a result - an emergency situation on a busy road, traffic jams and hundreds of drivers with a spoiled mood. The frivolous and frivolous attitude to the traffic can have very negative consequences. Also, traffic jams can also form due to an unexpected car breakdown on the track. This can happen to anyone and anywhere.

However, it also happens that the congestion is formed on an even wide road, without any reason. Such cases are much more interesting, in particular, for urban researchers, and the fight against street traffic jams becomes even more complicated in this case.

Causes of congestion

The reasons for their occurrence can be objective and subjective, permanent or situational. And it is worth noting that the fight against traffic jams is not so much a struggle with the congestion itself, but a struggle against their causes. Therefore, this question requires careful study.

Let's consider the most basic and widespread reasons:

• Violations in the design of the carriageway;
• Presence of complex unregulated intersections;
• Absence of pockets at public transport stops;
• Traffic light violations;
• Availability of parking in unequipped places for the road.

These were the constant causes of congestion. To the situational (or accidental) reasons can be attributed the following:

• Blocking traffic for moving tuples;
• Repair work on roads;
• Weather conditions (storms, snowfalls, showers, etc.);
• Gross violations of traffic rules by individual traffic participants;
• Emergency situations on the road.

The main consequences of road congestion

The consequences of congestion on the roads can be very negative. In particular, it is:

• Lowering the capacity of the carriageway;
• Economic damage for the whole city;
• Loss of precious time by traffic participants;
• Increase of harmful emissions into the urban environment;
• Increase in fuel consumption;
• Noise pollution of the urban environment;
• Unnecessary stress for drivers and residents of the city.

Street traffic jams and science

It is interesting to note that the struggle with traffic jams is worrying not only the representatives of the authorities, but also scientists, in particular mathematicians. They applied the method of mathematical modeling to answer the questions: "where do the plugs come from?" And "how to deal with them?".

Scientists have already found out that congestion can arise and without any apparent cause and preconditions. Therefore, they came to the conclusion that traffic jams can often occur on the streets of the city due to aggressiveness in the behavior of some participants in the movement.

The first historical example of a solution to this problem can be regarded as the appeal to the Parisian mayor's office of the famous scientist Blaise Pascal in 1654. He proposed optimizing the movement of carriages along the French capital. Fundamental studies of transport flows have been going on for over a hundred years.

Fighting traffic jams: classic ways

Over the solution of this topical problem, hundreds of minds are being racked around the world. With the help of serious practical and theoretical studies, mankind was able to develop the following methods of fighting traffic jams:

• Improvement of interchanges and intersections, as well as the construction of new ones;
• The establishment of public transport (here the brightest example in the world is the Brazilian city of Curitiba);
• Application of bands with variable direction of motion;
• Correct adjustment of traffic lights;
• Expansion of the roadway;
• The introduction of fees for entry into certain (problematic) areas of the city;
• Propagation of rational behavior on the road;
• The development of the subway, as well as cycling;
• Active use of computer methods and technologies.

Fighting traffic jams in the world: interesting examples

Most of the traffic congestion is caused by large megacities: New York, Singapore, São Paulo, Chicago, Moscow and other cities.

It is interesting to solve the problem with congestion in Athens. There on weekdays on even numbers on the streets are allowed to go only to those machines whose numbers end in an even number. On odd dates of the calendar - all the way around. Thus, each car can travel to the city every other day. If the police notice a car in the city that violated these rules, then its owner will have to pay a fine of 72 euros. A similar method is used in São Paulo.

But in Singapore with traffic jams are struggling with quotas. As you know, this city is very much suffering from a shortage of space. Therefore, in Singapore, the driver needs not just to purchase a car, but also to buy a quota for its use. Quotas are sold at auction, and their average cost is about $ 8,000.

But what about the fight with traffic jams in Moscow? At the moment, the whole struggle is reduced mainly to the construction of new interchanges and metro stations. A very useful project in the fight against traffic jams was the Internet resource "Yandex-Jam", which has operational information on the state of traffic flows in the city.

Thus, transport congestion is an inevitable consequence of urbanization processes. The fight against traffic jams in the world is conducted in different ways, and scientists working on this problem are developing new and new methods of such a struggle.