The document discusses congestion issues and potential solutions. It argues that solely increasing infrastructure capacity is not sustainable and that a new operational model is needed that integrates different transportation modes. Intelligent transportation systems (ITS) can help fill gaps between modes by providing real-time traveler information, payments, and analytics to optimize the transportation network as a whole. However, ITS alone is not enough - travelers and operators must be willing to make flexible choices between modes based on available information to naturally balance congestion across the system. This type of systemic change will take time but is already underway around the world.

1. Vol 7 No 1 North Americathinkinghighways.com26
OPINION PIECE
I
am writing this piece on a “redeye”
flight west across North America
from California back home to
Washington, DC. Out of the
aircraft window on this clear winter
evening I see the lights of towns and cities,
and often the lighted pathways between
them, 10,000 metres below, infrastructure
that is the legacy and indeed the crowning
achievement of several generations of
transportation planners.
Not quite visible at this level, and
perhaps less of a problem at this hour
of the night, is the growing problem of
congestion within those bright spots
below. How can all that concrete and
steel down there be made to increase our
mobility as it was intended to do rather
than be a source of frustration? The
answer I would suggest has somewhat
less to do with what was done to
build it in the first place than it does
how it must be managed, monitored
and enhanced going forward.
THE NEW MEASURE OF SCALE
Since the Industrial Revolution began
just over two centuries ago, the evolution
of transportation has been
premised on building
sheer capacity to achieve
economies of scale: taller
and longer bridges,
faster speeds, larger
aircraft and bigger
ships. In my last article I did promise that
I would get back to the Titanic…
One hundred years ago this April,
the worst and most infamous disaster
in transportation history occurred in
the densely trafficked corridor between
North America and Europe – then
as now the most heavily travelled
transport route on Earth. In an effort
to combine speed and capacity the
technology of the day the White Star
Line pushed and broke the limits,
creating a vessel that was far beyond
the navigation and communications
systems of the day and operating it minus
what are now viewed as fundamental
safety standards in terms of both
equipment and operating procedures.
The result as history now knows
was, even by the standards of the
day, an imminently preventable
tragedy that would fundamentally
change the way carriers, regulators
and the travelling public viewed their
responsibilities and entitlements.
As the 20th Century progressed, with
the advent of wireless communications
and eventually radar and then GPS
navigation technology, combined
with and at times driven
by better regulation and
oversight, vastly improved
both the safety and
efficacy of ocean travel
and other modes.
The world became more and more adept
at bigger and faster: take for example
the Golden Gate Bridge, the Channel
Tunnel, Concorde and A380, Shinkansen
and TGV trains, and all the high-speed
multilane motorways and interstates and
autoroutes -bahns and -stradi that now
girdle the developed and increasingly
developing world. Each was in itself an
undeniable technological milestone with
pervasive societal and economic impact.
And, yet, a century beyond the iceberg,
our cities are choked to gridlock and most
of us sit in traffic far more than we would
like, with the minutes contained in 1,500+
lost lives a century ago wasted the world
over countless times a year just in traffic,
and the lives lost and serious injuries as a
result of vehicular collisions far exceeding
those on ships and aircraft with over
40,000 fatalities on US highways alone
each year (compared to zero lives lost in
US commercial aviation during 2011) and
over a million worldwide.
THEREBY HANGSTHETALE
Today’s congestion problem thereby
is far less immediate in terms
of tragic implications, but
indeed no less apparent.
It is clear that there is a
need to find an entirely
new operating model
that extends from
the roadways
David E Pickeral takes the holistic
approach to congestion management
Circumventing
theiceberg

2. North America Vol 7 No 1 thinkinghighways.com 27
Congestion management
>>>
“ITS is, always was, and indeed always
will be an enablement, not an achievement
in itself, of congestion management”
themselves, to the operations centres, to
and across multiple modes of transit.
Where speed and size proved the
solution, the management of congestion
going forward must encompass a
combination of new technology, applied
in the context of a society where citizens
are willing to promote change not just
at the macro level but in terms of their
own daily behaviour. Highways cannot
continue to be packed and stalled to a
crawl while commuter trains rush by
along the adjacent rail corridor with a
large percentage of empty seats. Resolving
this supply-demand allocation across the
entire transportation network is of course
a huge and unprecedented change, a new
measure of scale, which will define our
success and that of future generations in
clearing congestion and creating a clear
path ahead for mobility.
FILLING MODAL GAPS
All of the aforementioned transportation
achievements have had essentially one
common denominator: the objective of
optimizing one specific mode with the
results of measurable and predictable ROI
from the expenditure of public and private
funds to develop that mode. This was
historically a very logical approach given
that most transportation systems evolved
with an equally focused objective: a
National Road into the growing American
Frontier, for instance, a five-day Atlantic
crossing, or London to New York in less
than three hours. An ever less desirable
result of that focused development is
that modal silos evolved which

3. OPINION PIECE
limit balancing the
current demand/
capacity ratio of
one mode against
that of the others.
Examples of such
include affording
habitual car commuters
the option of taking the
bus or train, or vice versa
as circumstances dictate, or
perhaps of paying a toll, hiring a
self drive vehicle or taxi, paying for
transit, or using a transportation asset
in a totally different city or even country
with the same open payments account.
The means to do this, though it seemed
a far reach when I first became involved
with the ITS community 18 years ago, is
far from science fiction at this point. New
high throughput devices such as 5.8/5.9
GHz toll tags and readers and low latency
LTE wireless networks are being deployed
around the world. Electronic wallets
and ePayments supported by advanced
encryption algorithms to ensure privacy
and security have already eliminated the
need for physical currency at the level of
the user and the financial networks with
which they interact.
Although the term “silo smashing’ is
an often (and indeed overly) used term
these days, what ITS technology really
offers is the prospect of not so much
breaking down the barriers between
the individual modes as it does fill the
gaps between them. Advanced traveller
information systems can gather real-time
data regarding all events and conditions,
and apply analytics to this huge stream of
data to notify travellers accurately hours
in advance of the exact time journeys will
require and the cost and availability of
everything from fuel to fares to parking,
and even link to payment systems to
seamlessly pay for these and other
commodities and services customised to
the individual route and user.
CHOICES AND
COMMITMENT
Technological enablement is
above all else making congestion
management far more a matter
of actually managing congestion
rather than the two extremes of:
1. Multi-year mega-billion
construction projects to add
lane miles in the hopes of
heading it off
2. Simply reacting to it when
(despite these efforts) it
invariably happens
However let me be clear that ITS is,
always was, and indeed always will be an
enablement, not an achievement in itself,
of congestion management.
What will ensure that ITS will fulfill
its promise of being mere gadgetry has
in the end far less to do with technology
itself as it does how operational doctrines
and policy evolve to promote and
sustain the necessary transformation
of the global transportation ecosystem.
Beyond intermodal flexibility there
must be a commitment from the most
senior officials in government industry
down to the individual user that no
element transportation network should
operate in a vacuum but be leveraged
collectively through ITS. As all ITS is
deployed and made available it is essential,
indeed as essential as the development
of the technology itself, that the
operators and travelling
public remain willing
to both learn to use
it, and likewise to
adapt their collective
and individual
behaviour to take
full advantage of it.
The key is flexibility.
Rather than deciding,
“I am a car commuter,” or
“I always take the train to shop
in the suburbs,” and following that
decision as a matter of habit day in and
day out, there is the willingness to use
the information ever more immediately
and easily available and tailored to each
individual user choose the best journey
option as balanced against both individual
need and the capacity of the transportation
ecosystem itself. The attitude shifts then
from a modally-focused one of seeking
to take a bus trip or bike ride, to one of
mode neutrality, with mobility itself as the
primary requirement.
It then becomes a matter of selecting
the resources that best align to that
requirement with consideration based
on each user’s personal preferences
and margins as to cost, time, comfort,
environmental impact, etc. Along with
the choices presented to them, it will be
essential for travellers to make open-
minded decisions to both meet their own
immediate needs as well as ensure the
overall effectiveness of the transportation
“system of systems.”
In this regard much can be drawn
from the experience of the public safety
community over the past decade since the
tragic events of September 11, 2001, which
was in many ways the start of a revolution
in security planning and preparedness
similar to the one transportation had
experienced on the morning of April 15,
1912. During the past 11 years, though
technology has certainly evolved, even
more can be credited to the development
or enhancement of mutual
aid agreements, statewide
interoperability executive
committees, regional
planning entities and the
like to ensure the same kind
of shift in approach just
discussed for congestion
management: optimized
and aligned resources,
integrated networks,
and the right level
and type information
Vol 7 No 1 North Americathinkinghighways.com28
“It will be essential for travellers to make open-
minded decisions to meet their own immediate
needs as well as toensure the overall effectiveness
of the transportation system of systems”

4. North America Vol 7 No 1 thinkinghighways.com 29
Congestion management
to the each
decisionmakers
when needed.
As this shift occurs,
I would go so far as to
suggest that much of the
need to “manage” congestion
(a responsibility with which
transportation system planners
and operator in all levels of industry
and government are entrusted with
ensuring and often unduly blamed
for not adequately addressing) will be
substantially obviated by the increased
choices and empowerment each
traveller will now have directly at
his or her disposure to create
a natural “balancing” of the
use between and across all
modes, and of routing and
options within modes.
CONCLUSION
This sort of re-instrumenting,
re-aligning and rethinking will not happen
overnight, but it is already underway
around the world. I do not think it
unreasonable that as the travelling public
gets up every morning and turns on their
ICT devices, each morning they have
collectively and individually some slightly
higher measure of mobility enablement
open to them – a clear path ahead.
DavidPickeralisGlobalDevelopment
ExecutiveforSmarterTransportationatIBM,
basedinWashington,DC
depicker@us.ibm.com
www.linkedin.com/in/pickeral
Forpreviousarticlesbythisauthor,enter
PICKERALintothesearchboxonourhome
pageatthinkinghighways.com
fyi
“This sort of re-instrumenting, re-aligning
and rethinking will not happen overnight, but
it is already underway around the world”