We live in an era of galloping urbanization, when cities grow, and increase their population every day. Along with this, the number of vehicles on city streets is growing: cars, trucks, buses and trams. But very often city roads are not at all designed for such powerful traffic flows. How do cities solve this problem and how is the fight against traffic jams?
Traffic jam - what is it?
A traffic jam (or traffic congestion) is an excessive accumulation of vehicles in a certain section of the road. At the same time, road users move at a very low speed or do not move at all.
What is interesting, according to the Rules of the Road in force in our country, we do not have the concept of “traffic jam” or “traffic jam” in the legal field. Indirectly, congestion is discussed only in one paragraph of the Rules - paragraph 13.2. However, in 2006 in the territory of the Russian Federation it was decided to introduce a new (temporary) traffic sign warning drivers about traffic jams.
Fighting traffic jams in the world is one of the global urban challenges. After all, the presence of constant traffic jams in a city affects its functionality badly, it can often even paralyze the normal life of the city system. Indeed, if you imagine the city in the form of a large organism, then its communication paths and roads can be compared with the arteries of the human body. Therefore, the municipalities of the largest world cities pay great attention to this problem, inventing ever new ways to deal with traffic jams.
Street traffic jams - a bit of history
It's hard to believe, but the problem of traffic congestion appeared a very long time ago. Traffic jams took place in cities already in the 17th century, and these were carriage jams! It was at this time that many carriages appeared on the city streets, with which it was difficult to cope with narrow streets.
The second wave of road congestion in big cities falls at the end of the 19th century, when a type of public transport such as a tram appeared. For some time, the problem of traffic jams was solved in the 20-30s of the XX century in connection with the construction of subway systems in large cities. However, in the second half of the twentieth century, this problem again makes itself felt, and to this day, the fight against traffic jams in the world remains an urgent task.
The largest traffic congestion in history
History has recorded many examples of major urban traffic jams. We bring to your attention the three most famous of them:
- New York, 1969 A traffic jam 70 (!) Kilometers long. Reason: A major rock festival in the city.
- Chicago, 2011. There was a real collapse of the transport system of the city, traffic jams lasted up to 12 hours. Reason: blizzard.
- Sao Paulo, 2013. This is still the most ambitious traffic congestion in history, it has reached a length of 309 kilometers!
The main reason is the human factor
The reasons for this phenomenon are actually very many. However, the human factor is considered the main cause of traffic congestion. On the road, you can often meet personalities in the style of "but I will slip!". As a result - an emergency on a busy highway, congestion and hundreds of drivers with a spoiled mood. A frivolous and frivolous attitude to traffic can have very negative consequences. Traffic jams can also occur due to an unexpected breakdown of the car on the highway. This can happen to anyone and anywhere.
However, it also happens that a congestion forms on a flat wide road, for no reason. Such cases are much more interesting, in particular, for urban researchers, and the fight against traffic jams in this case becomes even more difficult.
Causes of Traffic Congestion
The reasons for their occurrence can be objective and subjective, constant or situational. And it is worth noting that the fight against traffic jams is not so much a struggle with the traffic jams themselves as a struggle with their causes. Therefore, this issue requires careful study.
Consider the most basic and common causes:
- violations in the design of the roadway;
- the presence of complex unregulated intersections;
- lack of pockets at public transport stops;
- violations in the work of traffic lights;
- the presence of parking in non-equipped road sections.
These were persistent causes of congestion. For situational (or random) reasons include the following:
- blocking movement to move tuples;
- repair work on the roads;
- weather conditions (storms, snowfalls, showers, etc.);
- gross violations of traffic rules by individual road users;
- emergency situations on the road.
The main consequences of traffic congestion
The consequences of traffic congestion can be very negative. In particular, these are:
- decrease in traffic capacity of the carriageway;
- economic damage to the whole city;
- loss of valuable time by the participants in the movement;
- increased harmful emissions into the urban environment;
- increase in fuel consumption;
- noise pollution of the urban environment;
- unnecessary stress for drivers and residents.
Traffic jams and science
It is interesting to note that the fight against traffic jams excites not only representatives of the authorities, but also scientists, in particular mathematicians. They applied mathematical modeling to answer the questions: "where do the traffic jams come from?" and "how to deal with them?".
Scientists have already found that congestion can occur without obvious reasons and prerequisites. Therefore, they came to the conclusion that traffic jams can often occur on the streets of the city due to aggressive behavior in some traffic participants.
The first historical example of a solution to this problem can be considered an appeal to the Paris city hall of the famous scientist Blaise Pascal back in 1654. He proposed to optimize the process of carriage movement in the French capital. Thorough studies of traffic flows have been ongoing for over a hundred years.
Fighting traffic jams: classic ways
Hundreds of minds around the world are racking their brains over the solution to this pressing problem. With the help of serious practical and theoretical studies, mankind was able to develop the following methods of dealing with traffic jams:
- improvement of junctions and intersections, as well as the construction of new ones;
- the establishment of public transport (here the brightest example in the world is the Brazilian city of Curitiba);
- the use of lanes with a variable direction of movement;
- proper adjustment of the traffic lights;
- expansion of the carriageway;
- introduction of a fee for entering certain (problematic) areas of the city;
- propaganda of rational behavior on the road;
- development of the subway, as well as bicycle transport;
- active use of computer methods and technologies.
