Sustainability

The concept of Congestion Charging or Pricing for Demand Management has been around
since at the 1960’s. Economists and academics have argued its merits and its flaws for over
eighty years. While the underpinnings of the economic theory have not dramatically changed,
the thought about how to implement price-based congestion mitigation has evolved in several
key features, including political strategies employed, technologies used, customer services
offered, and degree of alignment of prices charged with externalities imposed. The authors
analyze how the implementation of these concepts evolved from the first road user charging
implementation, the Singapore Area Licensing Scheme through schemes in London,
Stockholm, Milan and now Manchester. The emergence of new concepts in later systems
shows that each successive generation of implementation provided new and innovative
thinking. The analysis suggests that new generations will not simply copy the earlier
generations, but further evolve the practice of mitigating congestion.

Booz Allen Hamilton

Presented at the 15th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, November 16-20, 2008, New York, New York

Urban development is  worldwide facing severe socio-economic challenges. On the one hand,
mobility demand is still increasing bringing economic wealth, on the other hand, residents and
tourists want policy makers to set up “Green High Tech Districts“  with excellent subway
systems and bicycle lanes to attract more visitors and consumers. Tourism and cheap airlines
started to boost global competition among cities for more international visitors, so modern
cities have to balance increasing mobility requirements and environmental standards – a
difficult task for transport policy.

Satellic Traffic Management GmbH

Presented at the 15th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, November 16-20, 2008, New York, New York

Reducing the fuel consumption of vehicles is one of the most important issues today. Recently,
intelligent transport systems (ITS) technologies have been used to develop ways to reduce fuel consumption by avoid traffic congestion. In this paper, we propose an ecological route search that generates routes requiring the least amount of fuel by considering many factors such as traffic information, geographic information, and vehicle parameters. We report here on our fuel consumption prediction model and the results of comparative driving experiments using our ecological route search and conventional time priority route search methods. 

Hitachi Research Laboratory, Hitachi, Ltd.

Xanavi Informatics Corporation

NISSAN MOTOR CO., LTD.

Presented at the 15th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, November 16-20, 2008, New York, New York

A critical trip generation rate or population density in cities above which traffic congestion
would be induced is derived. When the trip rate in a city exceeds the critical number, traffic
congestion prevails. The effects of employing an intelligent transit system to mitigate traffic
congestion and vehicle emissions are estimated based on an analytic framework. The benefits
attained by employing the intelligent transit in gasoline consumption and reduction in trip
time are estimated on an annual basis. The benefits are further demonstrated using a city like
Sacramento of California. The model is of great practical importance when applied to match
with transportation and urban development planning processes prepared by government
agencies at various levels.

Villanova University

Caltrans

Presented at the 12th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, November 6-10, 2005, San Francisco, California

Current adaptive urban traffic control systems generally seek to minimise delays in the
network. Some adaptive urban traffic control systems can take into account the number of
stops by vehicles. The latter can be used to limit fuel inefficient accelerations. The impact of a
stop of a fully laden truck is much higher than that of a light weight private car. By using the
emerging cooperative systems technology it will become possible to minimise fuel
consumption based on actual vehicle characteristics. The cooperative interaction is twofold.
Firstly, the urban traffic control system gets real-time insight in the vehicle characteristics
through which control can be optimised. Secondly, the urban traffic control system can give
feedback on optimal acceleration patterns to individual drivers or vehicles.

Peek Traffic BV

Presented at the 15th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, November 16-20, 2008, New York, New York