Where is the city headed?

The phenomenon of increased road capacity increasing road usage is now described as ‘induced traffic’ and despite being a simple supply-demand issue continues to be neglected in the benefit-cost ratio calculations relating to major roads across the world. 

Figure summarises this contentious issue. It shows that cities with higher congestion have lower fuel use and cities with less congestion use more fuel. As suggested this appears to be because, although vehicles in lesser congested cities are moving more efficiently, they are being used much more and for longer distances than in cities with more congestion, while in these less congested cities greener modes are being used less.

Finding a better balance between freeing congestion and saving fuel by facilitating better usage of sustainable transport needs to be the goal. This usually means charging more for fuel, parking or road use and using this money to build alternatives to car use

The data from Tables show that mass transit modes are generally in the order of 50 to 80% more efficient than cars. However, evidence shows that mass transit does even better at saving fuel – especially if it is a rail system. This is because 1 km of train travel has been shown to save between 5 and 7 kms of car travel.

A much more effective way to reduce congestion and save fuel sustainably involves striking a balance between enabling personal vehicle travel and enabling greener modes. If congestion can be reduced by reductions in car use then a city has a more sustainable solution to congestion and fuel use. London put in a congestion tax to reduce congestion and pay for the motor vehicle’s external costs. Singapore and Oslo had also done this but London was the first big city to attempt a city-wide approach.

The London initiative ringed the city with sensors that enabled people to pay automatically or to fine those who did not pay when they crossed the cordon into the main part of London. Most importantly they put the money raised back into better transit. The result was a 15% reduction in traffic and much better bus services, both because they were able to meet their schedules more easily and because they had more buses. The 60,000 fewer vehicles per day was much preferred by those who chose to continue driving and 50-60% of those who stopped driving changed to transit. For the cities of the world, it showed that such intervention can be done, that you can tax the car to make greener urban transportation work.

Other cities are now moving to a congestion tax; Stockholm found that there was a reduction in congestion of 25% at the morning rush and 40% in the evening, about half the people moved to transit with a 4.5% increase in transit patronage (from a very high base).

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