Road traffic congestion measurement considering impacts on travelers

Abstract

The article intends to find a method to quantify traffic congestion's impacts on travelers to help transportation planners and policy decision makers well understand congestion situations. Three new congestion indicators, including transportation environment satisfaction (TES), travel time satisfaction (TTS), and traffic congestion frequency and feeling (TCFF), are defined to estimate urban traffic congestion based on travelers' feelings. Data of travelers' attitude about congestion and trip information were collected from a survey in Shanghai, China. Based on the survey data, we estimated the value of the three indicators. Then, the principal components analysis was used to derive a small number of linear combinations of a set of variables to estimate the whole congestion status. A linear regression model was used to find out the significant variables which impact respondents' feelings. Two ordered logit models were used to select significant variables of TES and TTS. Attitudinal factor variables were also used in these models. The results show that attitudinal factor variables and cluster category variables are as important as sociodemographic variables in the models. Using the three congestion indicators, the government can collect travelers' feeling about traffic congestion and estimate the transportation policy that might be applied to cope with traffic congestion.