Traffic congestion is one of the main transit problems we face living on a small island. This is similar to the situation in larger cities and urban areas.

The effect of this is excessive noise and stress on drivers before starting their work day, which may have the knock-on effect of reducing the effectiveness of the work day. All this, besides the poor air quality that it produces.

Given this urgency, the need for a quick solution to alleviate rather than solve the problem has become much greater.

Alternatives to the current transport system, such as public transport or working from home, have not had the big impact that is needed. A new study between Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Central South University in China, the University of California at Berkeley and the Austrian Institute of Technology has shown that the adoption these alternatives by a small number of drivers does not have a great impact on the congestion during rush hours. The study uses mobile phone data to map out people’s locations.

What they did find, on the other hand, is that a small but selective segment of the driving population are encouraged to either take alternative routes or start later in the day such as through a flexi-hour system. The work, published in Scientific Reports, shows that using these alternatives on the one per cent general driving population reduces congestion by roughly three per cent in terms of extra hours spent in traffic, while applying these methods to one per cent of the carefully selected neighbourhoods can reduce congestion by up to 18 per cent.

The story that this tells is that some areas should be targeted for alternative transportation or work schedules more than others. In fact, this is true for any network of this kind. In the case of the study, two large metropolitan areas were studied, namely Boston and San Francisco, but the application may differ for other locations.

The teams also had some minor problems in their estimation of traffic volumes due to errors and lag time in the data gathering side of things. However, by and large, the result is clear: focused efforts of mitigation in specific areas of commuter communities can have a large impact on overall traffic congestion.

The study will continue with other cities in order to further understand how the effect can be magnified or used in the best way possible. However, in the Maltese setting, this can easier be applied with current, but focused, alleviation techniques in specific congestion areas. This may form part of the solution to the major transit problems our island faces.

Did you know!

• The largest contributor to the transport fleet in the country is the passenger car which amounts to 79 per cent of the total number of vehicles.

• Traffic congestion is seen as one of the major issues that the Maltese population faces.

• Transport is one of the highest contributors both to the air pollution levels and greenhouse gas emissions.

• The current transport situation and travel patterns have a negative impact on the economy, with the external costs of heavy traffic, as estimated for the year 2012, reaching €274 million and amounting to four per cent of GDP.

For more trivia see: www.um.edu.mt/think

Sound bites

• Sitting in traffic jams is officially bad for you: Traffic has become a part of our daily lives but what effect is this having on us? Our exposure to harmful toxins in the air clearly increases the more time we spend on the road. In fact, in some cities around the world, motorists are advised to roll up their windows and switch off their ventilation systems to prevent inhalation of the outside air. A team from the University of Surrey has found that through these relatively simple methods of avoidance we can reduce this toxin exposure by up to 76 per cent. They also found that despite the filtering system of most modern cars, even with windows closed the toxin level inside a car can increase dramatically when the fan is switched on. Another interesting finding is that near junctions and traffic lights the toxin level is not only higher than on normal road areas but that the dispersion rate is much lower, meaning that the toxins remain present there for much longer. This last point is very important because it links the effect of driving with pedestrians in a very direct way since pedestrians’ use of traffic light junctions is very high in traffic arteries.

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160825084841.htm

• Today’s electric vehicles can make a dent in climate change: Electric cars are having a big impact in the emerging transportation technologies situation but the question remains can they replace traditional fossil fuels? An MIT research team spent four years studying the problem using both GPS car monitors as well as national travel surveys, with the work eventually featured in the prestigious journal Nature Energy. Their findings indicate that up to 90 per cent of personal car usage could be replaced by low-cost electric vehicles. The knock-on effect for greenhouse gas emissions would be a 30 per cent reduction since larger power plants are more efficient than small car engines. Over time this would increase as the global usage of renewable energy source is taken up, meaning that international climate change targets would become much more realistic. As for constraining factors, the team cites the limited range of electric vehicles. However, the range of most modern electric cars has already well exceeded the average distance daily commute for the majority of drivers. This includes those long trips on public holidays.

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160815114836.htm

• To find out some more interesting science news, listen in on Radio Mocha on every Monday and Friday at 1pm on Radju Malta 2.