Life for many workaday road warriors goes something like this: snarled traffic, chronic delays, unrelenting commuting stress and excessive time spent getting from point A to point B. In addition to the intense personal frustration, there is a genuine economic fear: An inability to increase travel efficiency could choke off the prosperity jurisdictions everywhere eagerly seek.

Balancing demand and supply has proven elusive for the nation’s transportation planners. A 2007 study sanctioned by the Texas Transportation Institute, penned by research scientist David Schrank and research engineer Tim Lomax, painted a bleak picture. The authors found that traffic congestion plagues 437 urban areas nationwide and is growing steadily worse in regions of all sizes.

According to the report, congestion annually costs the U.S. economy $78 billion in the form of 4.2 billion “lost hours” and 2.9 billion gallons of wasted fuel. Those figures equate to 105 million weeks of vacation and 58 fully loaded supertankers, respectively, according to the study’s authors.

Large-scale capacity increases, such as new highways, appear to be out of the question. With the exception of modest new construction to eliminate severe bottlenecks, residents in most localities have definitively rejected the expense of adding asphalt and traffic lanes. So could technology help? Perhaps, transportation experts say. The solution will likely involve integrating several components: real-time, accurate information conveyed to travelers; mobile and stationary sensors for roads and cars; and sophisticated monitoring systems that track highway incidents and suggest workarounds.

One modest success cited in the study is a project in Detroit that used advanced traveler information systems, highway advisory radio, ramp metering and variable message signs. After implementation, average vehicle speeds increased by a little more than five miles an hour, trip times decreased by almost five minutes, and overall commuter delays fell by 22 percent. Other projects in London and Stockholm involving U.S.-based firms such as IBM Corp. and efforts in Singapore have shown more substantial progress.

For technology providers, gridlock could prove profitable. In the next 20 years, bidders could compete for contracts with aggregate values swelling to 11 figures.

“The addressable market is enormous,” said Andrew Stauch, vice president of marketing and management at Mikoh Corp., a McLean, Va., firm that produces security and digital marking products. “It’s a multibillion-dollar market space.”

The Transportation Department’s Federal Highway Administration pegs highway expenditures nationwide at $4.9 trillion through 2020, $10 trillion through 2035 and $18.3 trillion through 2055, stated in constant 2005 dollars.

That figure doesn’t include public transit expenditures, which are at least $40 billion a year and growing.

STATIONARY AND MOBILE SENSORS
Tony Ioannidis, a Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. principal who leads the firm’s transportationrelated business unit, said he believes the major trend in land transportation modernization is resource pricing, in which roads are treated as a valuable commodity that should not be given away for free. During rush hours, for instance, travel by car would cost more, but use of public transit might earn credits that could later be applied to the cost of automobile commuting in restricted lanes.

In such a scenario, one enabling technology would be vehicle infrastructure integration, a subset of DOT’s Intelligent Vehicle Initiative. The technology aims to coordinate deployments of communication technologies on board all vehicles, public or private. Data would be transmitted from roadside sensor arrays to vehicles, back from vehicles to roadsides and on to highway monitoring stations.

Trucks, cars and buses would essentially become mobile data collectors, anonymously and continuously transmitting traffic and roadcondition information throughout the transportation network. Transportation agencies would then apply the data in real time to alleviate congestion by directing emergency responders to breakdowns and accidents, changing traffic light patterns, and increasing tolls on hot lanes, whose price would fluctuate depending on demand.

But, Ioannidis said, “information technology by itself won’t do anything. You have to incorporate the policy side, the regulations, and you have to increase funding. You need to find techniques to use the resource in the right way.”

Under a $6.2 million contract, Booz Allen Hamilton helped San Francisco’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission develop, test and implement a regional fare-collection program based on a smart-card system that works across multiple transit modes, including bus, train, light rail, subway and ferry. The firm envisions developing next-generation automotive technologies such as active navigation systems, onboard lane-departure alerts and data recorders.

MONEY TO REDUCE CONGESTION
For technology vendors, the real money is likely to come from DOT’s National Strategy to Reduce Congestion on America’s Transportation Network, or the Congestion Initiative, introduced in 2006. A major component is the Urban Partnership Agreement, which awards grants to large metropolitan areas to develop integrated approaches to reducing congestion.

To qualify, regions must offer a comprehensive plan to implement what DOT calls the four Ts: tolling, transit, telecommuting, and technology and operations. In the first case, grant recipients must implement a congestion-pricing or variable-toll demonstration. The transit metric would involve creating or expanding express bus services, bus rapid transit or other innovative commuter services.

The telecommuting component would require securing agreements from major area employers to establish or expand telecommuting and flex-scheduling programs, and technology and operations would require proof of leading- edge approaches to improving transportation system performance.

In early April, the New York State Assembly refused a plan drawn up by New York City to assess an $8 toll for private vehicles entering midtown Manhattan from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. As a result, New York City stands to lose more than $350 million in federal transportation funds it had been expecting as a Congestion Initiative awardee. Also on the losing end were companies bidding to handle implementation, including DMJM Harris, Siemens Corp., Raytheon Co., IBM and Parsons Brinckerhoff Inc.

Congestion pricing remains controversial, in part because of fears that traffic will not behave as planners hope. In theory, charging drivers a fee that varies by traffic volume or time of day should promote free flow on roadways.

Discretionary rush-hour highway travel would be diverted to other transportation modes or to off-peak periods, taking advantage of the fact that many rush-hour drivers on a typical urban highway are not commuters. Planners point to variable charges that have been successfully used by airlines, cell phone providers and electric utilities to manage demand and supply.

“With congestion pricing, there are a lot of distribution effects that are difficult to deal with,” said Ronald Kirby, director of transportation planning at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. “But the use of roads has been underpriced. Tolling means roads properly priced shouldn’t experience many delays. When traffic increases, so do the tolls, and we should be able to maintain high levels” of traffic.

SMART CARS, CHRONIC DELAYS
Electronic vehicle registration (EVR) could be one way to help traffic move efficiently. Vehicles equipped with wireless sensors similar to those used for toll-road easy-pass systems would broadcast their position and speed. Chokepoints could be pinpointed quickly.

“One of the potential applications [of EVR] is traffic management,” Stauch said. “Traffic is like a supply chain; different assets are flowing through. It’s all about visibility. With the tags, you can monitor the flow at different times of day and in different conditions.”

A more immediate solution will likely involve faster emergency response to highway mishaps. Moving vehicles out of the line of sight of passing motorists can make a huge difference in traffic flow, said Connie Sorrell, chief of system operations at the Virginia DOT.

Beyond such measures, Sorrell expects technology to eventually fill the gap. “The next quantum leap in highway safety will be making cars smarter,” she said. “The application of wireless, mobile technology would help motorists recognize and avoid events.”

With the advent of an integrated approach to traffic management, Ioannidis said he foresees opportunities. “Large integrators are investing in everything from EVR to transportation management software systems. The opportunity is huge. It’s worldwide, and there are deals in play from Asia to South America.”

Still unresolved are the thorny problems of urban sprawl and suburban growth, issues not solved by IT or embedded hardware. Although planners might be able to add sensors to roadsides and roadways, they have little control over where people choose to live and how they travel from home to office and back again.

“Growth is outpacing the ability to build roads and infrastructure,” said Tom Harrington, director of long-range planning at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

“There’s a widespread recognition [that] you can’t just do one thing. Even if you add capacity, you still need [public] transit and traveldemand management.”

For the foreseeable future, delays will remain a component of urban travel.

James Schultz is a freelance writer in Norfolk, Va.