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Sunday, May 7, 2017
http://dailyasianage.com/news/60027/goods-and-bads-of-traffic-congestion
Goods and bads of traffic congestion M S Siddiqui As economy grows and real income of household increases, vehicle population surges up, contributing to traffic congestion, particularly within cities. We should recognize that traffic congestion is an inevitable by-product of vibrant, successful cities, and view the "congestion problem" in a different light. Congestion may be good in a sense that it's an indicator of active and vibrant urban places. Traffic congestion disrupts business activities and reduces productivity level. Research has shown that it may also be a symbol of growth in an economy. Any improvement in traffic congestion and transportation efficiency can influence cost of doing business, travel time, forecast reliability, comfort, safety and security of commuters. There is other part of story of traffic congestion. Matthias Sweet, a researcher at the McMaster Institute for Transportation and Logistics at McMaster University, Canada, conducted an interesting study using data from sources like the US Census Bureau and Federal Transit Administration. Sweet found in his research that a little more congestion might actually be good for the economy of any uncongested city. A higher level of congestion is initially associated with faster economic growth. But, above a certain threshold, congestion starts to become a drag on growth. Specifically, congestion seems to slow down job growth when it gets to be worse than about 35 to 37 hours of delay per commuter per year or about four-and-a-half minutes per one-way trip, relative to free-flowing traffic. Sometimes the cost of alleviating congestion is higher than the cost of the congestion itself. A city that has only a little bit of traffic would be wasting taxpayers' money paving new lanes of highway. There is debate in Bangladesh about benefit of costly flyover and output. The good news in all of this is that, Sweet found no level of congestion so awful that it entirely halts a region's job growth. All of those other variables that he controlled for - the other transportation infrastructure, the demographics, even the efficiency of the local government - matter too much. The cities - New York and Los Angeles, Dhaka, Shanghai, Thailand and Jakarta are most congested cities at the same time, these cities are business and commercial hub and commuters live there for good profession, more job opportunity and better 'living'. Traffic congestion on road networks occurs as a result of excessive use of road infrastructure beyond capacity, and it is characterized by slower speeds, longer trip hours and increased vehicular queuing. It can be perceived as unavoidable consequences of scarce transport facilities such as road space, parking area, road signals and effective traffic management, drivers' behavior, vehicle breakdown on roads and too many cars within the city. Congestion has three important dimensions of variation regardless of location or timing, the
frequency and severity of congestion delays increase as traffic volumes grow to exceed road system capacity: (a) The spatial pattern of traffic congestion may vary-it can be area wise or location specific. (b) The temporal pattern of traffic congestion may vary-it can occur during morning or afternoon peak periods or during off-peak periods. (c) There is also a stochastic element of traffic congestion- it can occur on a continuing basis at predictable times or sporadically (at random times) as a result of traffic accidents or other types of incidents. Despite congestion, a larger number and wider variety of social interactions and economic transactions can be consummated in large, crowded cities than elsewhere. Traffic congestion has imposing costs on metropolitan areas; the costs of inaccessibility in uncongested places are almost certainly greater. The population of Dhaka is increasing everyday due to internal migration since there is better job opportunity and better standard of living here. It is already overcrowded but thousands of people are coming to Dhaka from other part of the country. The economic costs of congestion are beyond travel delays, and they include wasted fuel, health impacts due to poor air quality and accidents, and impacts on economic productivity. It affects producers of economic goods and services in terms of business costs, productivity, and output etc. The economic costs of congestion vary depending on type of business and cannot be adequately represented by traditional measurement of user time and average vehicle operating costs. The resultant traffic slowdowns can have a wide range of negative effects on people, including impacts on air quality (due to additional vehicle emissions), quality of life due to personal time delays etc. The best example of traffic congestion was in Habee, one of the provinces of China, that experienced what was considered the world worst traffic jam ever, as traffic congestion stretched more than 100km from August 14 to 26 in 2010. Such situation has obvious implication on productivity and the socio economic development at large. Dhaka's traffic jams eat up about Tk 550 billion every year, said experts on the sector. The financial loss of traffic congestion in Dhaka comes to about Tk 1.5 billion a day. The financial loss that we face for loss of work hours has a negative impact on every sector of production, investment, and consumption. This loss raises production cost of our products, decreases competitive ability and frustrates foreign investment. But contrast, the contribution of Dhaka City to Gross National Products (GNP) is 30 percent and costliest city to live in Bangladesh, even it is costlier among the regional cities. The cost of living is similar to that in Bombay in India. Dhaka city has been suffering from congestion due to availability of reconditioned cheap vehicles. Most of the middle-class people can afford maintaining more than one car. The road tax is also relatively low here. A large number of vehicles are outdated, making their purchase and operation cheaper than in any other similar city in the region and other parts of the world. There is no on-street parking charges, no tolls on road within or outside the city. The low-cost condensed natural gas (CNG) is another boost in frequent use of cars. There are no peak hour charges for vehicles in important roads. It is argued that traffic congestion in cities is a symbol of a successful socio-economic development improved business activities, increased employment and improved culture. These are factors that motivate firms to operate in cities to benefit from economic gains. So, one cannot estimate the congestion costs by simply measuring network delay and must instead examine congestion's influence on the choices firms and households make about location and travel.
If delay on a congested freeway comprises only a small portion of someone's commute, that person's congestion costs are low even if congestion on the freeway network is high. The government could not send the garments and other factories out of Dhaka city but the congestion has pushed them to the outskirts of the city. Strategically, if a firm chooses to locate in a congested area that offers easy access to suppliers or customers, it is a mistake to consider congestion costs without balancing them against access benefits. A globally appreciated study finds that the cost of doing business is lowest in Dhaka city than in any other part or city of Bangladesh despite higher transport cost, office rent, salary etc. This is because all the administrative offices that issue licenses, approval and finance are located in Dhaka. The availability of expert manpower is comparatively easily available in Dhaka. One may wonder why expert manpower lives in and the regulatory authorities are located in Dhaka city. Traffic congestion has good impacts on many other areas. Indeed, people living in cities have come to accept traffic congestion as part of city dynamics and therefore have become used to getting along with it. The city land use patterns change very slowly, slower than changes in employment, trade, demographics, and especially technology. Even in rapidly growing areas, new urban development and new land uses comprise only a fraction of the overall urban fabric. The city dwellers learned to live in high-rise apartment buildings and leaned the culture of living in a small place sharing common wall and common roofs. The compact development increases the attractiveness of alternative modes like walking, biking, and use of mass transport. There is no effective public transport system in Dhaka or any other city. Only about 10 percent commuters can avail bus service although a thumb rule says the public transport system should serve about 50 percent of the total population. The middle-class in Bangladesh is not comfortable with public transport due to "higher" status and lack of comfortable service. An efficient public transport can be potential solution to the problem of urban road traffic congestion. Public transport systems can carry a significant amount of shuttle trips during congested hours, improving overall transportation capacity, and can release the burden of excess demand on congested road networks. Cities use to exist because they promote social interactions and economic transactions. Traffic congestion occurs where lots of people pursue these ends simultaneously in limited spaces. Culturally and economically vibrant cities have the worst congestion problems, while declining and depressed cities don't have much traffic. But congested cities like Dhaka in Bangladesh, Bangkok in Thailand, Jakarta in Indonesia and Shanghai in China attract overseas investor considering relative cost of doing business availability of skilled manpower, utility services and other facilities but ignoring the cost of living index. Traffic congestion is an impediment but it can be turned in a blessing, if it can be controlled in efficient manner to improve cost of doing business and facilitates investment. The writer is a legal economist. He can be reached at: mssiddiqui2035@gmail.com