A study conducted by the Texas Transportation Institute shows that traffic jams are costing the U.S. $63.1 billion a year.
Most of this money disappears in the form of wasted fuel and delays. “Congestion is a complicated issue and can’t be solved with one approach nationwide,” said Tim Lomax, TTI research engineer and author of the study.
The study shows that congestion is continuing to get worse even though job growth has been slow. AP shares a few stats from the study:
The result is clogged highways, and the king of that road nightmare is Los Angeles, where motorists are delayed an average of 93 hours a year. San Francisco was next with 72 hours, followed by Washington at 69 hours. Detroiters were delayed 57 hours.
In the 85 urban areas studied, rush-hour drivers spent three times as much time stuck in traffic in 2003 — 47 hours — as they did in 1982, the study found.
Overall in 2003, there were 3.7 billion hours of travel delay and 2.3 billion gallons of wasted fuel for a total cost of more than $63 billion. Congestion delayed travelers 79 million more hours and wasted 69 million more gallons of fuel in 2003 than in 2002.
Many traffic jams are caused by accidents. If they find a way to clear accident sites more quickly, a great amount of delay will be eliminated.
According to the report, about 336 million hours were saved in 2003 by the coordination of traffic signals, the smoothing of traffic flow on major roads and the creation of teams to respond quickly to accidents.
Chris is a staff writer for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest ebusiness news.
