A METHODOLOGY FOR QUANTIFYING URBAN FREEWAY CONGESTION

Urban freeway congestion is a serious and growing national problem, one that is receiving increasing attention from transportation engineers, planners, and researchers as well as local, state, and national officials. When attempting to quantify this problem or evaluate alternative solutions for a single freeway or for an urban area, one finds that a convenient methodology to calculate urban freeway congestion parameters such as delay, excess fuel consumption, and user costs does not exist. A computerized methodology is described that was developed to quantify urban freeway congestion parameters on a national basis. This methodology was applied to a national computerized database, but could be easily used by local agencies because the required input data are minimal. The procedure can be applied to a single freeway segment or to several segments in an urban area. The methodology described in this paper forms the basis of a user-friendly microcomputer program for calculating urban freeway congestion.