Why is my route to work always congested, and why isn't more being done to reduce congestion?
The U.S. Department of Transportation's Strategy to Reduce Congestion focuses on the answer to this question. While the root causes of traffic congestion have long been understood, there is now broad consensus that congestion generally reflects a fundamental imbalance of supply and demand. The core principle of the Department's Congestion Initiative is that we can bring transportation system supply and demand into alignment through congestion pricing, which is detailed in the Relieve Urban Congestion point of the initiative (one of six points). The Operational and Technological Improvements point of the Congestion Initiative focuses on the supply side - how we can better manage and operate the transportation system (supply) to relieve congestion.
Figure 1: An interactive diagram visually showing how some of the elements in this point of the Congestion Initiative fit together. Courtesy of US Government Accountability Office, 2007.
View the Interactive Diagram Map
Recurring congestion (non-optimized supply not meeting user demand) experienced by drivers on the road today is caused by physical bottlenecks and poor traffic signal timing. Other congestion events are caused by non-recurring factors, such as crashes and other incidents, highway construction, and bad weather. The goal of this point of the Congestion Initiative is to have transportation system managers manage these recurring and nonrecurring conditions successfully (in conjunction with a congestion pricing approach to balancing supply and demand) so that the system is optimized and more efficient. For more information on how Operational and Technological solutions fit into the overall congestion problem, read about the Congestion Problem and its Causes and Solutions.
The operational and technological solutions presented in this point of the Congestion Initiative include providing traveler information, improving traffic incident management, enhancing mobility in the vicinity of work zones, improving traffic signal timing, and reliving traffic congestion at bottlenecks (see Key Focus Areas box at the top right of this page or Figure 1, an interactive diagram visually showing how some of the elements in this point of the Congestion Initiative fit together, for links to the focus areas). Collectively, these practices provide operators, planners, decision makers, and travelers with information that allows for more informed decisions, better coordination, and quicker actions that can help avoid and reduce traffic congestion.
The Federal Highway Administration and State and local transportation officials are building on early successes with these focus areas and are demonstrating the potential for significant benefits to national mobility, with the ultimate goal of deploying these technologies and practices broadly across the country.