Traffic congestion occurs when demand for road space exceeds supply. It is a major problem in many urban areas, with typical residents spending 10 hours per week driving of which 1-3 hours are in congested conditions. Congestion reduces speeds and increases driver frustration. It has social, environmental, and economic impacts. Countermeasures to reduce congestion include improving road infrastructure, promoting public transit and urban planning practices that reduce traffic, implementing demand management strategies like road pricing, and applying traffic management techniques. However, implementing long-term solutions faces challenges including long time spans, high costs, and lack of regulatory bodies in Pakistan.

1. TrafficCongestion

2. Traffic Congestion:
“Congestion is a condition where demand
for road space exceeds supply”
 Many people considers congestion a significant
problem
 Typical urban residents spends more than 10 hours a
week driving of which 1-3 hours occurs in congestion
conditions
 Reduces travel speeds, requires more driver effort.
 It is a major source of frustration for busy, productive
people.
 Conventional planning considers congestion a major
problem and congestion reduction a dominant planning
objective.

3. Traffic Problem in Pakistan:
 Traffic problem in Pakistan is getting worse with every
coming day especially in big cities like Karachi,
Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Quetta, Peshawar and
Hyderabad.
 Govt is doing very little efforts to avoid traffic jams and
other traffic problems
 Small roads
 Rapid growth of the population
 More women drivers and young drivers
 Broken roads – as people don’t like to move from the
broken part so traffic increases
 The increase in the number of trucks and commercial
vehicles - these vehicles move very slowly, sometimes
stopping to unload goods, and blocking traffic.

4. Social:
 Reduction in transport speeds
 Reduced travel speeds
 Infrastructure overload
Environmental:
 The impact of exhaust emissions on human health
 Depletion of ozone layer
 Traffic noise
Economic:
 Time losses cause direct economic losses
EFFECTS

5. • Road Infrastructure
• Urban Planning and Design
• Supply and Demand
• Traffic management
COUNTER-MEASURES

6. Grade Separation
Using bridges or tunnel freeing movement from
having to stop for other crossing movement.
Ramp Signaling
Drip-feeding merging traffic via traffic signal onto a
congested motorway-type roadway.
Reducing Junction
By reducing junction of road.
Reversible Lanes
Where certain section of highway operates in
opposite direction on different times of day to match the demand.
Separate lane for specific user group.
Road Infrastructure

7. “Congestion can be reduced by either
increasing road capacity (supply) or
by reducing traffic (demand).”
Increased supply can include:
 Removing Bridge Supports:
Adding more capacity (more lanes at the
expense of hard shoulder or safety zones, or by
removing local obstacles like bridge supports and
widening tunnels)
 Adding more lanes:
Adding more capacity over the whole of a route
(generally by adding more lanes)
 Creating new routes:
Adding more capacity by adding more routes to
important destinations
Supply and Demand

8. Reduction of Demand Include:
 Parking restriction
Making motor vehicle use less attractive by increasing
the monetary and non-monetary costs of parking. Introducing
greater competition for limited city or road space.
 Road pricing
Charging money for access onto a road/specific area
at certain times, congestion levels or for certain road users.
 Telecommuting
Encouraged through legislation and subsidies.
 Online shopping promotion
It reduces the additional shopping trip.

9.  City planning and urban design practices can have a huge
impact on levels of future traffic congestion, though they are
of limited relevance for short-term change.
 Grid plans including fused grid road network geometry, rather
than tree-like network topology which reduce local traffic, but
increase total distances driven and discourage walking by
reducing connectivity.
 Transit-oriented development are residential and commercial
areas designed to maximize access to public transport by
providing a transit station or stop (train station ,metro
station, tram stop, or bus stop).
Urban Planning & Design

10.  Traffic reporting via radio, GPS and mobile apps, to
advise road users.
 Traffic counter to provide real-time traffic counts.
 Parking guideline and information systems providing
dynamic advice to motorists about free parking.
 Identify “pedestrian only” zones.
 Building new infrastructure.
 One way streets to speed traffic flow.
 Proper channelizing of traffic at school opening and
closing time.
 Educating people.
Traffic management

11. Issues in Implementation:
 Longer time span to eradicate
 Difficult to rebuild infrastructure
 Huge cost required to educate people
 No any regulatory body
 Required educated vigilant workforce