Causes and Effects of Traffic Congestion

Jain, Sharma and Subramanian mentioned that congestion in the United States has increased dramatically since the last twenty-five years, which is the same as many countries that suffering from traffic congestion currently. From the authors’ prospective, one of the major causes of traffic jam in the most cities is ‘poor road traffic management system’.

Increasing of traffic congestion every year is causing increasing of air pollution, wasting of time and productivity and causes diverse diseases such as, respiratory diseases. Moreover, the cost of solving or reducing traffic congestion is enormous. However, neglecting the traffic jam problem would increase the social problems among citizens.

The next part of this essay illustrates many causes of traffic congestion in different cities around the world, and the effects of these causes on the environment. Furthermore, the solutions that solved the traffic jam problem, and the suggested solutions that could help to reduce the congestion in some cities.

Causes and Effects

This part of the essay demonstrates many causes, effects and possible solutions of traffic congestion problems.

1. Los Angeles (USA).

Causes and Effects:

One of the main causes of traffic congestion in Los Angeles (United States of America) is ‘car culture’, which means many people in the city or county owned private cars (Thisdell, 1993). Additionally, the land-use pattern is an important reason that makes people in Los Angeles were using private cars widely and made transport planning difficult. Furthermore, traffic congestion increased due to no underground railway and public transport in Los Angeles. Moreover, the high numbers of vehicles, which are a result of overpopulation and the economic growth, and the weak of public transportation, have a negative effect on the environment such as air pollution, which happened on Saturday when commuter traffic is insignificant. Sorensen (2009) illustrated many reasons that make Los Angeles have traffic congestion such as ‘Common misconceptions’ and ‘high regional population density’. As an example of common misconceptions, people in Los Angeles love cars’ driving, which means the relation between people and their cars is very strong and described as love’s relation. As an example of ‘high regional population density’ is drivers were not consider roads as a problem of traffic congestion. Sorensen said that high population and some of the other factors that aforementioned could also make the traffic jam worse.

Solutions:

Thisdell (1993) mentioned that Los Angeles County transportation committee said creates more roads for cars will not solve traffic congestion problems, with increasing numbers of people and vehicles. Also, traditional public transport such as buses will be more effective in limited areas only. The committee suggested that ‘Metro’ system, which is a complete project of public transport including underground railways, buses and developing motorways. It is clear that, the system has many advantages such as reducing time loss, increase productivity and cut pollution. However, the cost of making just the first part of Metro project was $1.35 billion. In addition, there are some threats to human life such as, gas and earthquakes. Sorensen (2009) mentioned about some short strategies that can solve traffic problem in Los Angeles such as, encouraging people to use ‘ride-sharing’ and bicycles, improve the system of controlling the traffic light and make it more efficient, which are inexpensive solutions but very effective and eco-friendly. The other solution is ‘Peak -hour road pricing’ which make people pay some money to drive on specific roads at specific period of the day Downs (2004). This solution makes roads expensive and avoids traffic congestion at peak hours.

2. Dhaka (Bangladesh).

Causes and Effects:

The second cause that makes traffic congestion is lack of planning of city roads. According to Mahmud et al. (2012), Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh, is one of the most densely populated cities in the whole world. The population exceeded twelve million and still increasing daily; making the traffic jams a big issue for Dhaka government. According to their survey, many reasons cause this congestion such as, huge number of people live in the city and owned their cars and traffic rule violation. In addition, the roads are narrow, lack of Planning of the city’s roads and bad traffic signalling. It is clear from the survey that the city’s roads are the most problems that causing traffic congestion. Due to traffic jam, there are many impacts on the economy, peoples’ health and the environment. The economic impact describes as people losing some working hours, cars consumed more fuel and vehicle maintenance cost. Furthermore, people in Dhaka are suffering from inconvenience, breathing and eye problems which caused by pollution. Additionally, environmental problems such as, air and sound pollution are threatening people’s lives. Dey et al, (2002) mentioned that 86% of the general people who live in Dhaka considered noise pollution are a big issue for them. For instance, a high percentage of students said they studied in a noisy environment.

Solutions:

Many solutions considered for solving Dhaka traffic congestion.

According to Mahmud et al. (2012) survey, three different points to curb traffic jam were mentioned as follows: the first point is considered residents point of view [figure1], which including suggestions such as, increasing people’s awareness about traffic causes and their impact on the environment. In addition to that, 16% of people think that improving public transport is an important solution that can reduce the cost and time for them. As well as, scheduling different times to commence schools and government offices to avoid a traffic jam on the roads. The second point is vehicles’ considerations [figure2], which mean vehicle operators, could help to reduce traffic congestion. It is clear from [figure2] that, 41% of operators considered making strict rules of the roads, that every driver should follow these rules, as an effective solution to curb traffic jam. Moreover, 16% of the operators suggested decentralization solution, which means distribute the main offices and shopping centres far from city centre to avoid a huge traffic on the road going there .The third point takes the experts point of view, which were classified into three parts. The first part is the short-term solution (5 years) that can reduce roads jam temporarily as improving traffic light systems and increase the parking prices. The second part is the medium-term solution (5-10 years), such as improving the railways and makes it more efficient. The third part is the long-term solution (<10 years) for example, make sustainable transport for the city with considering the environment problems. Mahmud et al. said, by reducing traffic congestion on Dhaka, citizen health would not affect more by environmental problems such as, air and noise pollution. Moreover, people can have a relief about the impact of pollution on the next generations.

3. Arab countries: (Iraq, Egypt, Jordan and Oman).

Causes and Effects:

The third factor that causes of traffic congestion is inefficient and inadequate public transport, mainly in Arab countries such as Iraq, Egypt, Jordan and Oman. Kaysi et al. (2011) noticed that, the population of the previously mentioned countries increased rapidly during the last years. Furthermore, most of the aforementioned countries rich in oil, so the price of gasoline and diesel fuel is very cheap compared to European countries, which led to increase the numbers of private cars. Additionally, traffic congestion has increased dramatically as a consequence of lack of public transport and ignoring it by the governments. Besides that, some reasons contributed to increase traffic congestion such as, inefficient traffic management systems and insufficient public awareness .As a result of all previous reasons, the environmental pollution (air and noise) was increasing, and a slight negative impact on the economy in general was happening. Another effect due to traffic congestion is increasing in death rates in the above-mentioned countries by 38.1, 41.6, 34.2 and 21.3 (per 100,000 population) respectively, which considered as the highest compared to other countries in the world.

Solutions:

The Arab governments were considering diverse solutions to reduce traffic congestion in their countries. According to Kaysi et al. said, the governments understood that the public transport is the biggest issue in their countries; so many countries lunched projects such as underground railways. As an example of these projects, the Egyptian government launched a new project that aims to construct an underground metro in Cairo decrease using older cars, which increase air pollution. Another example, In United Arab Emirates, exactly in Dubai city, the government established an urban rail system that aims to reduce cars’ carbon emissions. Furthermore, due to increasing of pollution, particularly air pollution, the majority of the Arab governments switched from leaded gasoline to unleaded one. For instance, the aforementioned countries and Qatar, Tunisia and Bahrain are using unleaded gasoline currently. Whereas, few countries such as, Algeria and Iraq still using a dual system [figure 3]. Moreover, Arab governments began to control the import of second-hand cars that consume much gasoline or diesel and produce more carbon emissions. For example, in Egypt, importing a second-hand car should be less than three years old. As well as, in Jordan less than five years old, while in Oman importing second-hand vehicle needs permission from the Ministry of Industry.

4. Florida (USA) and Beirut (Lebanon).

Causes and Effects:

According to Hartgen et al. (2006) report, overpopulation and road capacity are the main causes of traffic congestion in the United States of America, especially Florida State. As an example, Florida has six urbanized areas that already suffer from the traffic jam, because of the increase in population, peak-hour traffic volumes exceed road capacity and people prefer private mobility. Additionally, ‘The Sunshine State’ expected to add another 6.4 million people in its urbanized areas by 2030. Consequently, traffic congestion becomes worse than currently, because of road capacities are not enough to accept increasing of cars. In addition, traffic congestion has many effects such as time loss, higher fuel use, increasing of accidents and loss of productivity. Similarly, Beirut city in Lebanon has the same problem (overpopulation) that causes traffic jam. Khaddaj (2012) mentioned that overpopulation and the high number of cars Beirut are the most causes of traffic congestion. Also, Researchers at the American University of Beirut (AUB) conducted an environmental study on air pollution that caused by traffic in congestion. The study released on 25th of May 2012, the results show a huge increase in pollution level that will affect people health and the environment.

Solutions:

According to Schrank et al. (2011) report, which made a study on traffic congestion of many cities in the United States of America, noticed that many solutions would help to reduce traffic jams. For instance, using the public transport system (railways, buses) and increasing of existing bus routes. Moreover, increasing the number of roads, bike lanes and make a new transit road may help to reduce traffic on the main roads. The impact of considering the aforementioned solutions would be, saving a significant number of delay hours, and reducing the amount of gasoline that consumed due to traffic congestion. By moving to Beirut city in Lebanon, Khaddaj (2012) said, due to overpopulation and increasing in air pollution that affected on the green spaces in the city, the ministry of environment in Lebanon launched a new project called ‘Greener Beirut’ that aims to decrease the amount of gas emissions and increase the green areas. This project is focusing on increasing the number of parks in different areas in the city to increase the percentage of air levels in the city. In this project, Beirut government tries to reduce the environmental impact of traffic congestion on citizen’s health.

Conclusion

To sum up, traffic congestion is a global problem that many cities suffering from it. The most important causes that increase traffic congestion are overpopulation, lack of planning of city road, using private cars widely, road capacity and insufficient and inadequate public transport. As a result of previous causes, a huge impact on the environment, human health and economy. As an example of environmental effect, air and noise pollution, which lead people suffering from heart diseases , asthma and lung cancer. Moreover, time loss, the car consumes more fuel and reduce productivity are the popular impact on the economy. Many solutions are considered to solve traffic problems .The most suitable solutions that some cities constructed are underground metro, using public transport, expand road’s capacity, reducing import second-hand cars and improving of traffic light signaling. Each city constructed properly solution to reduce or curb traffic jams.

From my perception, the solutions of traffic congestion are diverse from city to another, depending on the city’s infrastructure and the culture of the residents. Some solutions such as metro system, which includes underground railways, buses, and bicycles may not success in developing countries that suffers from overpopulation and people have own car as a culture. However, starting with public transport (buses) and encouraging people to use it instead of private cars could solve a part of the traffic problem, and changing gradually people thinking about using private cars every time.