Grading Congestion: Modeling and Analyzing Traffic Congestion
Engineers employ LOS ratings to classify traffic congestion.Copyright National Institute of Standards and Technology http://www-nlpir.nist.gov/projects/tv2005/topics/image.examples/traffic.2.500.jpg
Students construct a model roadway with congestion and apply their knowledge of level of service (LOS) to assign a grade to the road conditions. The roadway is simply a track outlined with cones or ropes with a few students walking around it to mimic congestion. The remaining students employ both techniques of density and flow to classify the LOS of the track.
Traffic congestion is estimated to have caused ~700 million person hours of delay per year in the early 1980s, more than 2 billion hours of delay in the 1990s, and nearly 3.5 billion hours of delay by 2000. The costs of congestion—time delay costs, reduced productivity and opportunity, environmental impacts, etc.—are approaching $100 billion a year, and continue to rise. With so many roads in disrepair, engineers use LOS to determine priorities for allocating limited funding for roadway improvements.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Describe congestion and its levels.
- Calculate traffic density and flow.
- Evaluate congestion through LOS.
- Identify the impacts of congestion.
- Classify roadways with LOS.