Short Paper
Proc. of Int. Conf. on Recent Trends in Transportation, Environmental and Civil Engineering 2011
GIS Application in Traffic Congestion Management
Mr. R. Chandra prathap1, Mr. A. Mohan Rao2, Dr. B. Kanaga Durai3, Dr. S. Lakshmi4
1
ME Student Division of Transportation Engineering, Anna University Chennai, India
prthpchndr@gmail.com
2
Scientist E1, RDM Division, Central Road Research Institute, New Delhi, India.
amrao.crri@nic.in, durai.crri@nic.in
AbstractThe urbanization in developing countries indicates
that more people live in cities than before. The trend of
urbanization, population increase and the increase in number
of registered vehicles induces pressure on traffic movements
and makes living in urban area more difficult. General
congestion related data collection and congestion management
measure is labour intensive and a heavy investment is needed
for these mitigation measures. Hence to make this work
feasible, latest technologies like GIS and GPS wisll help to
analyze the live traffic situation and suggest the cost effective
measures to mitigate the congestion, an attempt was made to
use GPS and GIS effectively for data collecting, data analysing
and result displaying process.
Index TermsGIS Application, Congestion Management,
Traffic speed, Modeling, Regression Analysis.
I. INTRODUCTION
A. General
A transportation system should satisfy the perceived
social and economic needs of the user, as the need changes
transportation system itself evolves and problems occur if it
become inadequate. The critical problem that an urban area
faces is the traffic congestion which occurs when the demand
exceeds the capacity. Main cause of congestion is
oversaturation and the situation worsens if an incident
occurs. General congestion management measures include a
wide range of data collection, system monitoring, identifying
and evaluating transportation control measures. These types
of measures and management can be done effectively with
the help of latest advancements in GIS and GPS.
B. Need For Study
The existing system of congestion management system
requires more reliable data which is expensive to collect and
maintain. Hence advancements in data collection and
presentation techniques such as Global Positioning System
(GPS) and Geographic Information System (GPS) if properly
used will enhance a good traffic congestion management
system.
C. StudyObjectives
The objectives of this study are:
To determine the various factors that influences traffic
congestion.
To develop a model for prediction traffic congestion.
3
Scientist F & Hea d, RDM Division, Central Road Research
Institute, New Delhi, India.
4
Professor & Head Division of Transportation Engineering, Anna
University Chennai, India.
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To estimate the congestion using the model developed.
To use GIS as a tool for effective congestion dissemination
and management.
D. Overview of Remaining Sections
This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 reviews the
earlier work that was performed regarding congestion
modeling and the various works that were done using GPS
and GIS for congestion management. Section 3 provides a
brief methodology of the proposed work and the description
of study area. Section 4 discuss about the various data
collection techniques and the data that have been collected
for the study. Section 5 briefs about the road section data
analysis which was carried out in GIS environment. Section 6
and 7 discuss about the traffic speed modelling work and
validation of the developed model. Section 8 is structured
particularly to expose the GIS application in traffic studies
and Section 9 provides an overall conclusion of the work
with future scope of study.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
The literatures review was done to find the various key
parameters of congestion, existing methodologies that were
adopted for congestion modelling and the existing GIS
application in the area of traffic congestion management.
III. METHODOLOGY AND STUDY AREA
The methodology adopted for the study is:
Identification of parameters which affect traffic congestion.
Selection of study corridor.
Collection of data.
Identification of suitable model.
Modeling traffic speed.
Model validation.
Estimation of congestion using model.
Dissemination of congestion results using GIS.
The subsequent Para explains the proposed methodology in
brief. The various parameters identified which effect traffic
congestion include traffic characteristic such as speed, travel
time and percentage compositions of all modes of vehicles
and roadway characteristics which includes number of lanes,
turning radius, friction points and number of flyovers. For
the current study two heavily congested urban corridors one
from Chennai and another from Delhi are selected. The study
area selected in Chennai is NH45 which is one of the major
arterial road links which connect Chennai city with southern
part of Tamilnadu. This road is mostly congested and reaches
jam condition especially during peak hours. The another
Short Paper
Proc. of Int. Conf. on Recent Trends in Transportation, Environmental and Civil Engineering 2011
corridor selected for study is Delhi Inner Ring Road which is
around 50 km long circular road that encircles important
locations of the city and is in fact one of the longest road in
Delhi. The Selected corridors are shown in Figure1 and
Figure2.
Figure 1. Study area in Delhi-Inner Ring Road.
Figure 2. Study area in Chennai-Anna Salai.
IV. DATA COLLECTION
A. Travel Time Data
Travel Time is the important data that is needed for the
proposed work. Travel Time includes both running time and
stopped time of the vehicle. Manual method of data
collection is time consuming and more prone to errors.
Hence, GPS device is used for data collection which is capable
of providing a highly accurate, continuous global position
data such as latitude, longitude, altitude and time. VBOX 3i
GPS Device is used for data collection in Delhi. For Inner
Ring Road, many runs were made by floating car method
both in the Clockwise and Anticlockwise direction at different
time period of a day. GPS data for the Chennai corridor was
collected using HAICOM GPS Device. In Chennai, data were
collected for two working days and one non working day
and the survey is conducted during morning, evening and
afternoon peak hours. Other than this volume count data
and friction point data were collected from secondary
sources.
V. SECTIONAL DATA ANALYSIS
A. Data Segregation
Travel time data collected is a continuous one i.e., starting
from a point and ending at the same starting point. Since
enormous amount of data are recorded it is difficult to do
analysis as a whole. Hence it is necessary to do segregation
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of data so as to make the analysis easier. For this purpose a
Map basic program was developed in MapInfo software so
as to make the work easier. The developed program was used
for preliminary analysis for all sections thus extracting each
reference distance, section travel time and averages of other
sectional parameters.
B. Road Segmentation
MapInfo Software is used for the segmentation of road
network. Inner ring road consists of around 38 major
intersections of which most of them are controlled by
constructing flyovers and some of them by signals. Ring
road was divided so that each segment encloses a flyover.
Totally 20 sections were identified in Inner ring road and 6
sections were identified at Chennai.
VI. TRAFFIC SPEED MODELLING
The basic reason behind the traffic speed modelling is to
examine how the traffic speed fluctuates with respect to the
other traffic and roadway characteristics. Traffic speed was
modelled by considering other traffic characteristics such as
travel time, percentage composition of vehicles and roadway
characteristics such as number of lanes, turning radius,
friction points and number of flyovers. Statistical analysis
was carried out using Statistical Package for the Social
Sciences (SPSS) software to develop a linear regression
equation taking speed as a dependent variable and other
related characteristics as independent variable.
A. Factor Analysis
A factor analysis is a statistical method which is utilized
to discover factors among observed set of variables and it is
used mostly for data reduction purposes. If a data set contains
an overwhelming number of variables a factor analysis may
be performed to reduce the number of variables for analysis.
Factor analysis was performed by considering fourteen
variables i.e., speed, time, mode, centre of deviation, number
of flyovers, friction points, radius of turn, percentage
composition of two wheeler, buses, trucks, LCVs, SMVs,
cars and autos respectively. Totally five factors were obtained
of which factor one comprises variables such as mode,
percentage composition of two wheeler, trucks, SMVs and
cars respectively, factor two comprises of three variables such
as percentage composition of autos, friction points and radius
of turn respectively, third factor includes percentage
composition of LCVs and number of flyovers, fourth factor
includes travel time and percentage composition of buses,
and the fifth factor consists of centre of deviation. In this
percentage composition of vehicles were loaded in first,
second, third and fourth factor whereas roadway
characteristics such as friction points, number of flyovers
and radius of turn were contributed in second and third factor.
Driving characteristics such as time and centre of deviation
were contributed in fourth and fifth factor. The component
matrix for Delhi data is given in Table 1.
Short Paper
Proc. of Int. Conf. on Recent Trends in Transportation, Environmental and Civil Engineering 2011
TABLE I.
COMPONENT MATRIX SHOWING VARIABLE DISTRIBUTION
Although the percentage variance contributed by all the five
factors is 75, variables with similar characteristics are
distributed in two or three factors and hence it is difficult to
group the factors based on the common thread among the
variables and therefore it is necessary to move on to stepwise
regression analysis with these variables for developing the
model.
B. Stepwise Regression Analysis
Stepwise regression is a procedure that relies on a user-
selected criterion, such as R-squared, adjusted R-squared,
F-ratio and other related measures, to select a best model
among competing models generated by the procedure.
Stepwise regression model was developed with speed as
dependent variable and all other parameter (mode, friction
points, radius of turn, centre of deviation, number of flyovers,
time, percentage composition of two wheeler, trucks, SMVs,
cars, autos, buses and LCVs) as independent variable. The
developed model is shown below in equation 6.1.
Speed(ACWD)= -5.283 + .060*rad_of_tur + .642*Buses +
.0003*Centre of dev + .244*Friction points +
2.273*No_of_flyovers + 0.135*Two Wheeler
(1)
The model given in (1) comprises of parameters such as radius
of turn, centre of deviation, friction points, number of
flyovers, percentage composition of two wheeler and buses.
The R square value of the model is 0.917 which is good.
However, the percentage composition data collected from
Delhi inner ring road indicates that cars and SMVs contribute
a high and considerable amount of volume to the traffic. But
in the developed model cars and SMVs are eliminated during
regression analysis. Hence it is mandatory to include
percentage composition of cars and SMVs so as to clearly
represent the realistic traffic condition in the model. Hence
along with other parameters cars and SMVs percentage
composition were added and the model is redeveloped as
shown in (2)
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Speed(ACWD)= 1.712 + 0.0601* rad_of_tur + 0.585*buses
0.000344* Centre of dev + 0.245* Friction
points + 2.246* No_of_flyovers + 0.087* Two
Wheeler 0.039*cars 0.013*smvs (2)
A model was also developed to check whether the total
volume of traffic in the road segment makes a significant
change in the R square value of equation 6.2.
Speed(ACWD)= 6.095 + 0.0601* rad_of_tur + 0.453*
buses 0.000304* Centre of dev + 0.240* Friction points +
1.778* No_of_flyovers + 0.0049* Two
Wheeler 0.098*cars 0.122*smvs
0.000013*total volume (3)
R square value by considering total volume is 0.918 which
shows that there is a least significant change in the (3).
Similarly for Chennai study stretch,
Speed = -149.285 + 2.721* Two Wheeler + 0.479*cars
+ 6.364*buses + 1.025*trucks + 5.275*
Friction points 2.690*travel time (4)
VII. MODEL VALIDATION
It is necessary to validate the model developed by
verifying that the model is able to reproduce observed traffic
movement to a level appropriate for its use. The model
developed for Delhi study area was validated by considering
the following criteria.
Criteria 1: Applying the developed model for the same study
area of city.
Criteria 2: Applying the developed model for different road
network of city.
Statistical tests such as T-test and F-tests were carried out to
asses weather the mean and variance of actual and modelled
data has significant difference or not. The test result shows
that the modelled speed data deviates a least from the actual
speed data. The hypothesis test result shows that P-value is
not less than 0.0001, and the conclusion is that the difference
between the two means is statistically insignificant for all
cases. Hence the modelled developed is performing well.
VIII. GIS APPLICATION
A geographic information system (GIS) is a computer-
based tool for mapping and analyzing geographic
phenomenon that exist, and events that occur, on Earth. GIS
technology integrates common database operations such as
query and statistical analysis with the unique visualization
and geographic analysis benefits offered by maps.
A. Database Development
Database preparation and development plays a major role
in any GIS based activities. The main target of a database
development is to provide information in GIS background in
a user friendly manner. It involves a sequence of steps to
Short Paper
Proc. of Int. Conf. on Recent Trends in Transportation, Environmental and Civil Engineering 2011

attain the described target. The data collected from GPS

devices includes latitude, longitude, speed, number of
satellite, etc., are transferred into a Personal Computer (PC) in
a text file(*.txt) format. The text files are then converted in to
excel file format by using GPS visualizer software for further
sectional analysis. The analyzed data cannot be directly linked
in GIS environment hence it should be converted in to database
file format for linking it to GIS field.
B. Actual Speed Vs Modelled Speed

Figure 6. Comparison of Working and Non-working Day Speed

Figure 3. Comparison of Actual Speed and Modeled Speed Inner
Ring Road Delhi.
Anna Salai Chennai.
Figure 5 displays the mode wise speed comparison data for
inner ring road, Delhi. Figure 6 shows the speed comparison
of working and non working day for Anna salai, Chennai. It is
easily inferred that working day speed is comparatively less
when compared to non-working day speed. This is because
in general most of the transportation oriented activities such
as official trips, school trips and other commercial trips will
occur more on working days. That to during the peak hour
these trips will be more say, official and school trips will be
more in morning and evening peak periods.
8.2.2 Congested Section (Speed < 15 Kmph)

Figure 4. Comparison of /actual speed and Modeled speed-Anna

Salai Chennai.
Figure 3 depicts the actual and modelled speed data
comparison for the downward traffic flow of Delhi inner ring
road. The figure explains that the actual and modelled speed Figure 8. Congested Section Inner Ring Road Delhi.
data are almost coincides in majority of ring road sections
except a few. It can be observed that in sections 15 and 16
both the actual and modelled speed is exactly the same as
one other Similarly, Figure 4 disseminates the actual and
modelled speed comparison for the downward directional
traffic flow movement of Chennai study stretch. The picture
clearly shows that the model developed predicts the speed
for all the segments in an accurate way.
B. Speed Comparison

Figure 8. Congested Section Anna Salai Chennai.

Figure 7 and 8 shows the congested section in Delhi and
Chennai study stretches. When we compare above two
figures Chennai has much more congested points when
compare to Delhi. This is because in Chennai frequent signals
are observed all along the length of the road however in
Delhi most of the signals are jumped out by constructing
flyovers.
Figure5. Comparison of Mode wise Speeds IRR Delhi.
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DOI: 02.TECE.2011.01. 4
Short Paper
Proc. of Int. Conf. on Recent Trends in Transportation, Environmental and Civil Engineering 2011
CONCLUSIONS
The significant results obtained from this study are
The average speed of bus (28Kmph) moving in downward
direction of Delhi inner ring road is less when compared with
two wheeler (37Kmph), three wheeler (35Kmph) and car
(42Kmph) and the trend is same for the other direction.
The average speed of bus (22Kmph), three wheeler (33Kmph)
and car (36Kmph) moving in upward direction of Inner Ring
Road is lesser than those moving in downward direction of
the same road which clearly shows that these downward
direction traffic is suffering from congestion when compare
with the later. In Chennai, during working days the average
speed of traffic flowing towards city was found to be 20Kmph
which was lesser compared to the traffic flowing from city
(22Kmph). This clearly shows that during working days more
people migrate towards city for official and business purpose.
For the aforesaid case during holidays the situation takes
place in a reverse manner i.e., the average speed of traffic
flow towards city (32Kmph) is more when compared to that
flows away from the city (29Kmph). This may be because
more people travel away from city for recreational purposes.
In this study GPS and GIS was used for input data preparation
for model development. It was used to disseminate
congestion results and for modal speed comparison. It was
used as a cartographic tool to display results however, the
effective use of GIS was made during data analysis. This
paper concentrate more on the methodology and due to time
consideration the execution of the methodology is limited.
The transferability of the models developed was not fully
tested in this study because the data collection technologies
are different for different cities; however one can try with
same technology for the study area and can work/test for
transferability of models developed.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors are indebted to the help rendered by the
field staff in data collection. The authors wish to thank Dr. S.
Gangopadhyay, Director, Central Road Research Institute,
New Delhi, India for his motivation, guidance, suggestions
and kind approval to publish this paper.
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