Adaptation Strategies for Managing Recurring Congestion—Operational Improvements - Road Traffic Congestion - page 198

Chapter 16
Adaptation Strategies for Managing
Recurring Congestion — Operational
Improvements

16.1 Introduction

Increasing roadway capacity has been the traditional method to cope with and
manage traf c congestion. Capacity enhancement strategies generally improve

mobility of all road users. Sometimes, however, they are designed to improve
mobility of special users

— such as high-occupancy vehicles (e.g., carpools and

public transport vehicles).
There are two types of capacity enhancement strategies: (1) those that restore
lost capacity by eliminating operational ciencies and bottlenecks in the

existing roadway system; and (2) those that add new road capacity. This chapter
describes strategies that increase the operational ef

inef

ciency of the existing system.
Chapter 17 , discusses strategies that add new roadway capacity.
This chapter shows how operational strategies can reduce congestion by making
better use of existing streets and highways. Getting the “ most ” from existing streets

and highways has been a long-established traf c engineering practice to increase

capacity, reduce delay, and improve traf c safety in the short term at modest costs

and with minimum adverse community impacts.

16.2 Scope

The various sections of this chapter describe the strategies that improve traf c

operations, give application guidelines for each, suggest relevant analysis methods,
and set forth likely effectiveness of the various strategies. In this respect the sug-
gested analysis methods complement the various capacity, delay, and level of
service procedures of the 2010 Highway Capacity Manual [ 1 ].
Traf c operational improvements that increase capacity include a combination of

traditional strategies such as: parking restrictions, signal timing and signal