Joseph B. White from the Wall Street Journal discussed findings from the Texas Transportation Institute regarding congestion.
Traffic relief doesn’t have to involve cutting-edge networking technology or pricey fast lanes. Hiring more tow trucks to clear wrecks and stalled cars faster can generate big gains at a moderate cost. Houston spends about $5 million a year to assure that there are roughly 100 tow trucks cruising the major commuting routes.
The Texas Transportation Institute’s Mr. Lomax estimates Houston’s tow truck army saves $25 million to $30 million in congestion costs and about $30 million in collisions that could have resulted from chain-reaction pileups.
Synchronizing stoplights on busy city streets can save millions of gallons of gas and keep traffic flowing. The catch: Doing it right is pricey. The hardware and software to synchronize stoplights in time to variations in traffic flow are complex, and the systems have to be maintained regularly.
Using lights on freeway entry ramps to control the flow of cars onto the main road can also ease the flow. Inrix’s Mr. Trepanier says these systems require sophisticated software to work properly, but shave minutes if done right.
