Research data could make commuting less of a toll

Larry Bowie
Institute Communications and Public Affairs

Have you ever been stuck in gridlock traffic while running a few errands and wondered why so many other cars are on the road? If so, you’re not alone. Transportation researchers at Georgia Tech are examining the commuting habits of several hundred drivers in the metro area in a study that’s become the largest of its kind ever conducted on vehicle travel patterns.

Drivers who volunteered to take part in the study allowed researchers to install a small electronic box in their vehicles, developed by the researchers, that uses global positioning systems to record the movement of vehicles and various engine data, as well as where, when and under what conditions people drive in the Atlanta area.

The research team, led by Randall Guensler, a professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, says the data could help city planners decide what streets are in need of stoplights, which are prone to bottlenecks, and which have become heavily used shortcuts.

“We can use this information about how people travel in Atlanta to better plan the future of our regional transportation system,” Guensler said. “The data will provide a wealth of information for possible use in congestion mitigation, signal timing improvement and roadway design improvement.”

	The study will provide city planners with valuable data about the behavior of Atlanta commuters.

Called “Commute Atlanta,” the project is sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration, the Georgia Department of Transportation and Georgia Tech. So far they have already collected data from more than 100,000 trips.

In the study, data such as speed, position and acceleration are tracked as drivers go about their daily routines. The data is so accurate that if a participant’s vehicle were stolen, researchers could locate the vehicle using the equipment.

The information is uploaded to a main computer at Georgia Tech, where researchers monitor the travel patterns. The data helps to identify locations where traffic congestion occurs, giving precise details on the time, date and duration of each incident.

For example, on one stretch of Interstate 75 in the Atlanta area, “… if you arrive between 7:05 and 8:20 a.m., it’s going to take you a significantly longer amount of time to get through that section,” Guensler said.

Although Guensler and his group gain important data from the data trip collector, position data doesn’t tell the whole story. So the team supplied each driver with a travel diary to better understand the types of trips being taken.

Looking at data from one of the drivers during the course of one week, Guensler pinpoints the driver’s trips to the grocery store, daycare, home, school, healthcare, a drop-off at MARTA and two work locations. The trip data collector assesses traffic flow patterns from location to location — information drivers could use to choose better routes in order to cut commuting times.

Nationwide surveys typically rank Atlanta among the top cities for traffic congestion, with the average rush-hour driver spending about 55 hours per year in traffic. A recent report from Texas A&M University indicates the problem is cyclical, and getting worse: peak congestion is taking a larger part of the day, involving more roads, and creating more travel time than in the past.

Guensler says the information his group is collecting could be useful to planners to help them prioritize improvements to the regional transportation system in order to obtain the biggest congestion reductions, at the least cost, and as quickly as possible.

Although Commute Atlanta is designed to provide critical transportation planning data for the Atlanta region, Guensler hopes it will serve as the starting point for a planned research effort that would evaluate the potential effects of cent-per-mile automobile insurance pricing.