Skip to main content

Second Responses to Smarter Transport

Thank again. Your responses are more reasonable this time but I would like you to consider a few assumptions that you make.
These assumptions are what make the proposals in the study not effective.

Please refer to my comments alongside your statements, and my previous statements, below.
Yours sincerely,


Saya yang menjalankan amanah. (I, who executes the trust)
Ir. Hj. Othman bin Hj. Ahmad
Associate Professor
Electronic (Computer) Engineering
Faculty of Engineering
University Malaysia Sabah
Jalan UMS
88400 Kota Kinabalu
Tel: 088-320000 ext 3052, 0178980858
email: othman58@ums.edu.my


On Sun, Nov 24, 2019 at 11:10 PM Edward Leigh <edward@smartertransport.uk> wrote:
Dear Othman bin Ahmad,

Quick thoughts in response to your reply …

1. "an intervention like this, which increases road capacity"
My proposal is not about increasing capacity. It is about improving capacity of lanes that already exist.
It is a waste of resources if we cannot improve their efficiencies in the most economical way.
It is still increasing capacity and, as your paper makes clear, requires additional land take. You are considering only efficiency in terms of vehicles/hour, not people/hour (and tonnes/hour), which is what really matters. 

You cannot solve the people/hour if you do not solve vehicles /hour.

2. Congestion is wrongly defined. According to your definition, any long journey is a congestion then.
This is false. Congestion should be viewed  as how frustrated users are, not how long the journey should take.
Congestion is usually defined as delay relative to free-flow journey times. There is no quantifiable psychological metric ("frustration") of congestion.

Refer to the crowd sourced definition of congestion. In textbooks, and academic journals, they are not clearly defined. Their definitions change with the objective of the research.
If you do not settle on this definition, any solution will be pointless.


People are not frustrated if they know before hand how long a journey will take. Of course, everyone wants instant travel but practically it is impossible.
The two statements are unconnected. The first relates to journey time variability. Because congestion is a non-linear effect, small perturbations (weather, roadworks, events, school term/holiday etc.) can have a large impact on journey times. The second sentence relates to speed. In fact what matters to people is journey time: they have a maximum "time budget" which, combined with journey speeds, determines how far they are willing to travel for work, leisure, etc.


This is a very complicated topic. You should settle on the definition that serves the public the most.
Making the assumption that there is a "maximum time budget" for any journey is wrong. Especially in terms of traffic congestion.
I suggest you consider the crowd source definition in Wikipedia which places the definition as just cars that do not move at all.
My proposed definition is a reduction is speed below the theoretical maximum flow, i.e. gaps are larger than the size of the vehicles.
It is more deterministic.


3. "reduce demand to travel" 
You view as though travel is something that people want. With this wrong assumption, all research data is useless. They don't like to travel. They have to travel.
For example, going to the cinema. If we can have a cinema at home, it will be even better, but it will not be economical.

A) People travel because they want to enjoy a reasonable quality of life.
That is all correct: travel is a derived demand, i.e. a means to an end.

I notice that a lot of proposals are to reduce the quality of life the people. Any proposal that reduces the quality of life of people will not succeed. This is unacceptable. It is like the planned economy of the communists or socialist states.
What about the Tragedy of the Commons? My driving contributes to congestion that penalises everyone else. How is that to be resolved? Without a congestion charge, the penalty is time, which limits how far people can travel. With a congestion charge, the penalty is a mix of time and money, which favours the rich. That can be partially offset if revenue is reinvested in public transport.

B) People travel because they can get value out of the travelling. If they arrive faster, carry more things, less labour used.

4. " increase the space- and energy-efficiency of the transport we do use, and reduce the ecological damage of transport" A novel approach but they should not break rule 3A and 3B.

My proposal is just to improve efficiency of the transport, that is all.
Your proposal seems to remove road transport altogether.
It's about allocating space equitably to all modes, including motor vehicles. Private motor vehicles are the least space- and energy-efficient mode of transport (other than private helicopters/jets), and therefore should sit lower in the hierarchy of public provision of infrastructure. See:

It is a nice attempt but has lots of weaknesses that is too long to explain. I suggest you do more research on this topic.

5. "re-allocating land from motor vehicles to footways, cycleways, green space (especially  trees) and natural drainage system"

Motor vehicles are still the most efficient transport. Efficiency in time and mass. At least 50km/hr, 1000kg/trip.
That's a very narrow and arbitrary definition of efficiency.

It is  a very scientific definition. 

A cyclist can only travel at 10km/hr safely. 20km/hr is considered racing already. Carrying 100kg luggage is already too dangerous. You do not take into account all the weather hazards.
How many trips require 100kg of luggage? Even an inexperienced cyclist can cycle faster than 10kph. A normal average speed is about 10mph or 16kph. A fit cyclist or an e-cycle, about 50% faster. That is perfectly adequate for most intra-urban travel. Where distance or weight make cycling inconvenient, a shared car or delivery service will be more appropriate. Solo car trips should not be banned, but we should not invest millions or billions of dollars in facilitating them when there are alternative investments with larger and wider social benefits.

One trip is sufficient to make it a necessity.

I agree that cycleways will remove traffic jams and will be more environmental friendly, but it breaks 3A and 3B. And so unnecessary.
We can improve our efficiencies and allow hybrids to cater for all types of vehicles.
Visit Amsterdam, Utrecht, Copenhagen or many other cities that have built high quality cycle provision, and thereby created safer, less polluted, more pleasant city centres.

I drove a few times in Amsterdam, the latest 2016. I nearly hit a cyclist while crossing a bridge. They never stopped roads.
Amsterdam has no steep hills. But the latest I heard, Amsterdam provide tunnels and bridges across a river for cyclists.


It will be impossible for your proposal to get approval. Imagine disallowing busses and lorries in your vicinity.
Since you cannot get rid of them, why don't you design systems that allow them to co-exist. This is the zeist of my proposal.
Where there are already multiple vehicle lanes, I would in general propose that one is assigned exclusively to public transport (bus or tram). Where there is only one lane (in each direction), I would in general seek to restrict demand and/or access to private vehicles in order to maintain free flow for all vehicles. I would not support any policy that conflicts with making cities safer and easier to walk and cycle around. 

And yet you support a system that forces vehicles and people to cross each other.  This is proven the most dangerous because any accident is fatal, compared to merging accidents.
If you are really sincere in supporting safety and comfort(no traffic jam), then you should not allow vehicles and/humans to cross each other at junctions, even with traffic lights.
And yet you support more expenditures on improving traffic lights even more. Traffic lights are still crossings. And any system cannot solve a congestion condition which reduces the efficiency of lanes by 50%.

6. To allow vehicles of different sizes to co-exist, you need bridges and underpasses.

I propose underpasses for small vehicles or pedestrians, instead of bridges. Bridges are too high for most people, especially elderly.
You can provide escalators like in Hong Kong, but even in such a dense population centre, they cannot afford escalators for all bridges.
That is an extraordinarily expensive and disruptive intervention. Relocating all the services below most urban streets (sewers, water and gas mains, electricity and communication cables) is a major factor. That is not to say that civil engineering is never the answer, just that demand management should also be considered.

I thought safety is so important for you. We need to invest in safety.
By right, they should have been planned for underpasses from the very beginning, for humans, cyclists and vehicles.
I lived near Marble Arch, and I frequently go to Hyde Park by using pedestrian underpasses.


7. "addressing safety, the best solution is to reduce vehicle speed" 

Reducing speed reduces compliance with 3A and 3B. You should realise that people are willing
to sacrifice safety for quality of life and economics. Any travelling itself is not safe.
Yes, people are willing to sacrifice other people's safety for their own convenience. That is why governments have a duty to protect the most vulnerable which, in this case, is people walking and cycling.

Your definition of the most vulnerable people is completely wrong. Cyclists and walking people are fit and young people. The most vulnerable are elderly, women and children.

My basic proposal is actually to reduce speed without reducing flow efficiency. Flow efficiency is independent of speed, but road engineers do not like to reduce free flow speed.
This priority of road and traffic engineers has gotten most cities into a mess, adding lanes, flyovers, bridges and underpasses, rather than investing in the most space- and energy-efficient modes of transport: walking, cycling and public transport. The first creates ugly, polluted, permanently congested cities; the latter, liveable cities.

You are wrong. They have made a lot of calculations in coming up with the lanes, flyovers, bridges and underpasses.
Mostly based on maximum speed which may lead to minimum journey time.
This is fine in the rural areas, but in the cities, it is impossible, because of the lack of spaces.

I agree with the highway planners when it comes to the rural areas and for long journeys. We should not dispute them.
You cannot walk or even cycle all the way to London from Cambridge.


I suspect you propose cycling which has reduced speed in order to increase safety. Safety of vehicles is actually dependent on the 
type of vehicles. For bicycles, they are not safe at 20km/hr. For skateboards, they are not even safe at 10km/hr because they mingle with pedestrians.
Bicycles by themselves are safe, with very few fatalities. It is collisions with motor vehicles (especially travelling over 50kph) that kill most people cycling and walking.


Still they are not safe also.

My basic proposal is to reduce speed in congested places to 50km/hr. A standard car is perfectly safe at 30km/hr because humans can respond
quickly enough. 50km/hr will require auto pilots. But more efficient auto pilots can handle even faster speeds.

30km/hr for cars is certainly much more efficient than bicycles.
Not more energy-efficient, nor usually more time-efficient for intra-urban trips when you also take into account the time to park and walk from the parking space to the destination.

You should not make any assumption.
The fact that people still prefer cars shows that you are completely wrong.


8. " incentivise people to walk, cycle, use public transport or car-share instead of driving solo"

My proposal is to increase efficiency of car use by any vehicle, even pedestrians. Not to encourage people to drive solo.
Most people also will agree that it is better to use public transport or share cars if they are able.
Your proposal makes driving (solo or otherwise) quicker and therefore more attractive. Policy interventions are required to make walking, cycling and public transport substantially more attractive (in terms of cost, time, convenience, stress) than private transport in order to incentivise people to switch to those more space- and energy-efficient modes of transport.

Not really. I encourage slow speed U-turns instead of high speed junctions at traffic lights. Slow speed under passes instead of full-size underpasses.
Your proposal is to make driving so uncomfortable and dangerous that people will cycle or walk. This is unreasonable. You will not be successful.

Even in the most congested places like Kuala Lumpur, people still drive to work. I do not understand them, but my colleague said that they had to. Who are we to argue with the users?
Kuala Lumpur already has a lot of public transportation, and at most time under utilised unlike Hong Kong or Tokyo. Or even London.

By replacing traffic lights and junctions with no-crossing U-turns, you make the junctions safer and more efficient.
I sense that your rejection of my proposal is because it improves driving condition, i.e. no traffic jam, that people will use cars more.
If you study the proposal further, you shall notice that there is a self-control mechanism, whereby cars entering the highway will not be able to when maximum flow rate is achieved simply because the gaps are so short that new cars cannot enter the highway anymore.


For example car sharing. Taxis is a good example of car sharing. The fares are so expensive that they cannot afford to do it on a daily basis. During an emergency, the taxis may not come on time. Because of traffic congestion.
In most countries, very few taxi rides are shared. They contribute significantly to congestion in most cities because they are a highly space-inefficient form or transport.

That was what the data on ride sharing also. So your idea of ride sharing is not practical also.
You should try to understand why people do not want to share taxis that are essentially for common use.
Why taxis do not offer ride sharing? Is it because they cannot make the most profit?
Why passengers do not want to share? Is it because taxis do not give sufficient discount for the inconvenience of sharing?

Ride sharing also creates a lot of problems. Safety is still poor although response time is much better.
9. Technology improvements to improve transportation
Your proposals have a lot of weaknesses. Technology is the most critical. Probably they were not prepared by Teletraffic Engineers.
You only mention ride-sharing but https://www.smartertransport.uk/smarter-cambridge-transport-urban-congestion-enquiry/ is even worse, because it does not.
Technology is certainly important in managing traffic networks and demand (interventions 1, 2, 10, 15). We haven't in this article addressed transport information platforms and Mobility as a Service, which should help people use the most appropriate modes of transport for every trip.

The most crucial is the traffic light management. This is a useless attempt. Traffic lights cause traffic jams and congestions.
My proposal removes all traffic lights with little increase in area and of free flow speed.
If I understand you correctly, then every junction would be grade-separated, and every pedestrian crossing (how many metres apart?) would be via an underpass. What cities could afford that? And who would want to live in such a motor vehicle-dominated environment?

Yes. Correct.
Because the alternative is traffic jams, and pedestrian fatalities.
To reduce traffic jams in such cities where congestion is so bad, the cities need to invest for their safety and efficiency of transportation.

Or else, the economic activity of the cities will suffer. People will move away from the cities.

Do not joke about this. It has happened to my town, Sandakan. They charge high parking fees that businesses suffer and had to close shops.

If you plan ahead, underpasses are just extensions of the underground car parks in cities where shopping malls or other economic activities occur.
Slow speed underpasses benefit vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians also.
U-turns will benefit public buses also which need to be small so that they can turn without crossings. Mini-buses are more suitable.

Public buses are not popular because they are stuck in traffic jams frequently, and they need to stop at traffic lights more frequently which make people sick.
Private cars are more comfortable so the effects of traffic lights and jams are not so severe.


The key is actually ride-sharing but ride sharing is useless if there is no efficient road traffic system. Solving them by using traffic lights is like flogging a dead horse.
Ride sharing is a very old solution. But no attempt by your group to solve them by using technology. Uber is a good step, but Lyft may be safer.
Uber and Lyft are making congestion far worse in the cities where they operate. They abstract passengers from buses and metros.

They both have ride-sharing but they do not offer them in most cities. But their technology is a step forward.
In fact, they call their services, ride-sharing, which is actually a lie.

You must solve the safety, comfort and efficiency of the ride-sharing systems. If you don't, any attempt to encourage people to cycle will be useless.
How are these related?

You can only cycle when the weather is good. I once cycled in Swansea, and had even fell down in winter. I was a teenager at that time. Imagine if I were 60 years as I am now?
Would I cycle even in winter?
I love to cycle, and still have a bicycle in front of my house, but I have not used them for so long, because they were not convenient. Once, we were caught in a thunderstorm, despite wearing rain coats.

If we can improve the ride sharing system so that it is cheap, I would use them to go to my office located 20km away, that is often riddled with traffic jams. If the weather does not permit me to cycle,
I can call a ride sharing service. I do not mind sharing the ride with other passengers if the fare is so low and my safety is assured. Efficiency means low fare.

One important reason why Uber failed is because they are profit oriented. If an NGO like your group were to organise this service, you should be able to offer ride sharing safety by registering users in your areas.
Even our ride sharing company(Grab) had to introduce image recognition software after a few cases of deaths and robberies in this service.

Your NGO may even ask for subsidies taken from the rate payers in your areas.
But all these are useless if your traffic system is not safe and subject to traffic jams.


Maybe you should introduce women drivers and women only passengers. They are the most vulnerable group of people.
Some taxi companies and ride-share platforms do offer this as an option. 

We can wait for self-driving solutions, or try to allow self-driving solutions like Wymo to operate in Cambridge. Since no drivers, they should be safer.
Autonomous technology is nowhere close to being safe and reliable in uncontrolled urban environments. Personally, I don't see it having a significant role for many years. 

You should research their results first before outrightly dismissing them. Why don't you approach them? So are other companies.


Further ahead, we can improve ride-sharing efficiency by using cars that join together. Flow efficiency is dependent on the distance between cars. The flow
efficiency is highest when they are joined together like trains.
You're focusing on vehicles, not people. Buses, trains and trams provide a much more space- and energy-efficient way of moving large numbers of people in dense urban areas. Platooning may have a role on motorways/expressways, but early tests in Germany with HGVs were not positive.

Trains and trams appear efficient because they are electric, but they cannot send you to the exact location that you want to go. Elderly people will suffer.
Electric cars that can be joined together to increase capacities, but separate when they arrive at their locations, can be just as efficient, while sending passengers to their exact destinations.
Platooning is not advanced enough.



Better still, self-driving cars do not need car parks.
Where do most autonomous vehicles go outside of peak travel periods? If they're all circulating the roads empty, then they will be contributing to perpetual congestion. All modelling of AVs has indicated that the lower trip price will induce more people to travel in them, abstracting from other modes just as Uber and Lyft do today; and empty-running increases overall vehicle miles in the city. The net effect is increased congestion.

Your assumption is most probably wrong. If they travel mostly empty, it means that there is an excess of them, thus increasing costs of operations. Some may have to stop operating altogether.
Let market forces decide, instead of a pre-planned economy.
Once an effective all-weather solution to transportation is assured, more people will cycle or walk. In case the elderly are caught in bad weather, they can always count on a ride home.
Provided walking and cycling are safe.


10. My proposal does not need any new technology and will support all your solutions.

My proposal removes all traffic lights by using no-crossing U-turns or slow-speed underpasses, for vehicles, cycles or pedestrians.

What is the point of encouraging people to walk and cycle if they have to risk their lives by crossing roads? Ridiculous.
After making people risk their lives by crossing roads, you now reduce the efficiency of the roads by stopping cars from moving at traffic lights or road crossings.
Cars consume the most energy when stopping and starting. Traffic flow is zero when the cars stop, but the vehicles/hour does not change whether the vehicles
travel at high or low speed.

After reducing traffic flow efficiency by using traffic lights, you need to increase the number of lanes, instead of reducing the number of lanes. You make things
worse.

By removing traffic lights completely, you can improve flow so much that you only need one lane of roads so you can use the other lanes for other things such as pedestrian and cycling paths.
I come back to the practicality of providing pedestrian crossings at convenient intervals along every urban road and at every junction that is currently light-controlled.


Pedestrian underpasses are cheaper than pedestrian bridges, equipped with escalators. Or any improvement in traffic lighting system that will certainly fail when congested.
If you do not provide these bridges, do you expect people to risk their lives crossing roads? Even with traffic lights, accidents still occur.
Read the fatality reports in road accidents.

If you do not provide these safe environments, how can you expect people to walk or cycle?

By reducing the number of road lanes, you can finance the pedestrian underground passes.
In crowded cities, you can combine car underpasses with pedestrian underpasses because U-turns are not practical because they take up more land area, and not suitable for pedestrians and cyclists.

In Busan, South Korea and Singapore, these pedestrian underpasses have shopping malls.

I am not familiar with the conditions in Cambridge. I lived in Swansea, Edinburgh and London while studying there.
I have driven all over UK and Europe in 1985. Visited London and Europe in 2016.

Each city and environment will be different but my proposals should be adjusted accordingly.

11. Learn from other places
All suggestions that had been forwarded had been tried in various forms all over the world. They all failed. Why still try solutions that had been known to fail?
Why not try something that has never been tried before, like my solution to replace all traffic lights completely?
I'm interested to know which cities where you believe improving provision for walking, cycling and public transport has failed.

Tokyo. The most advanced transportation system in the world. But every summer, a number of deaths are reported among the elderly.
I visit Tokyo more than 10 times, but I am not impressed with our necessity to walk for long distances to look for public transportation while carrying large suitcases.

Singapore. Despite huge taxes, public transportation, and basically all proposals used by your group, they still suffer from traffic congestion. Travelling by public transportation is
uncomfortable, took too long, and a lot of walking.

Amsterdam. Despite a large number of cyclists, driving in Amsterdam is also a nightmare. We need to park outskirt and walk 2km to our places of interest.

Despite all these measures, congestion still occur in these cities. Whose cars are those? Are they all visitors? Not really. They must be locals also.

I prefer to travel at mid night through all the cities. Few cars and no congestions at all. Congestions only occur at certain times of the day at which traffic lights will certainly fail to solve.

In Japan, we had to walk more than a few km to our places of interest. There are bicycles for rent but when my niece tried to rent, they won't accept our credit cards. Japan provides a lot of pedestrian and bicycle paths
but not easy to hire bicycles.

12. My solution is complete, by why rejected?
I notice that you have made a lot of wrong assumptions and use wrong data. I wonder if you really understand my proposal a little bit.
One thing is certain though, that your rejection is complete. I suggest you reread my proposal. If you have difficulty in understanding,
please refer to Teletraffic Engineers to verify my design proposals.
I believe I understand your proposal, but I still believe it solves the problem the wrong way, by increasing road capacity for motor vehicles (though not in the usual sense of adding more lanes). The priorities should be about increasing the flow of people not vehicles, by promoting the most space- and energy-efficient modes of transport. That accords well with advancing a zero-carbon, zero-pollution future for cities.

You should approach your problem with a scientific and data based analysis. Do you realise that vehicles can move with zero energy? And many people cannot walk without suffering, even to the point of dying?
You should consider not just the flow of people but quantify them into speed, comfort and safety in all weather conditions. And vehicles are the most efficient solution because they are the most efficient tools to solve the transportation problem.

Facts prove my point. Despite all the solutions that had been proposed, vehicles are still widely used.

I had travelled using bullet trains, Shinkansen throughout Japan for a few times, but in 2018, we travelled to Mount Fuji by hiring a car. For 7 people, it is cheaper to rent a car than to travel by train, despite using the JR Rail passes.
You do not expect the 7 of us to cycle up Mount Fuji, do you? And when we arrived at the top, they are full of cars, despite a large number of buses as well.

The fares for these buses are more expensive than our rental car and petrol. Which means that these public transportation is not as efficient (energy or whatever), compared to hiring a car, even in land-scarce Japan, where parking costs are extravagant.

Despite the Shinkansen, I propose to hire a car so that we can discover more places in Japan, just as I had done when travelling around UK.

I live in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, formerly North Borneo. Despite worsening traffic conditions, our transportation is still very efficient, when I compare with other cities, even at Amsterdam.
There are proposals to introduce public transportation, but I believe they are not necessary and will not solve the overall problems, especially when the costs are so high.

Better to use no-crossing U-turns where space is available and make slow speed underpasses an integral part of roads. The cost of these underpasses will be minor compared to the overall cost
of the road systems.

The conventional solutions being used in Kota Kinabalu is to build overhead bridges at huge costs in money and space. As we run out of space to build these overhead bridges, they will move to underground trains like in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.
Our quality of life will not be the same as now. Now we can drive a car right in front of the shop or cinema that we want to go, within less than 30 minutes, most of the time.

Once we have to resort to public transportation system, we shall need to travel a few kilometers to our destinations like what we had to do in Seoul, Tokyo, London, Paris, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. These are reductions in the quality of life of a traveller.
The costs are not cheap also. In fact all these public transportation systems need to be subsidised by the public so are not really that efficient.

I watched Cambridge using Street View in front of Emmanuel college. A lot of bicycles parked haphazardly, unlike in Amsterdam or Tokyo. The cyclists also cycle on the roads unlike in Tokyo. This is a dangerous practise.
I saw only a single car, but a few double decker buses. The roads are narrow, unlike our roads at Kota Kinabalu.

Because of the traffic lights, Cambridge will suffer traffic jams at certain times of the day. You have limited resources to remove the traffic jams apart from using one way streets and utilising the u-turn around buildings to move from one place to another.
The use of double decker buses will mean longer waiting time compared to smaller buses. In some routes in Tokyo, they use mini-buses but even then, it took more than 30 minutes that it is faster to walk than to wait for the bus.

However, I just want to share my experiences and ideas in removing traffic jams that will reduce the quality of life of the inhabitants sooner or later. Their suitability depends on the place and resources available but sooner or later, they need to be implemented, if we want to have a vibrant economic or social environment. My only concern is that people reject my ideas without fully understanding the ideas. I believe, you have understood all the basic issues that I want to raise and for that, I sincerely thank you.


On Fri, Nov 29, 2019 at 5:13 PM Edward Leigh <edward@smartertransport.uk> wrote:

Dear Othman bin Ahmad,

It occurs to me that your proposal is really a reinvention of the roundabout, which achieves what you seek: filtered merging of traffic avoiding conflicting movements that (typically) require traffic lights.

You can convert roundabouts into no-crossing u-turns if they are big enough to allow changing lanes in the roundabout, like Arc De Triomphe, in Paris. In fact, a social network poster in France mentioned that a conversion of a roundabout into traffic lights at his town made the traffic congestion worse.

Here is a real-world example of a half-roundabout, which is close to what you've drawn:

Incidentally you described very well what a congested state is: "there is a self-control mechanism, whereby cars entering the highway will not be able to when maximum flow rate is achieved simply because the gaps are so short that new cars cannot enter the highway anymore." That definition applies to any road network, howsoever configured. Congestion is an equilibrium state: the longer the delays, the more intolerable they become. Some people who can change their travel origin (e.g. move home), destination (e.g. change job) or time will do so to avoid the congestion.

Not if there is a traffic light. The traffic light normally operates at around 90% rate if there is no congestion, like the Google Street Map of Cambridge that I saw. But when there is congestion, the traffic lights cause the efficiency to drop to 50%, i.e. only half. For example, from 2 lanes into one lane. If we knew in advance, we can plan accordingly. For example, I travel to my University at 6am and return at 4pm. Except when there are some outstanding issues where I would rather go back at 8pm.

The point is, we can always avoid any traffic jam if we know the pattern before hand, for certain. Getting caught in a traffic jam is what frustrates most people.
 
Our disagreement is not about technical design: what you propose is more efficient at moving more vehicles/hour safely. Where we differ is in our vision for a liveable, sustainable and carbon-neutral city. I believe that has to be more like Copenhagen than, say, Atlanta, Georgia.

I drove to Copenhagen in 1985 after I had finished my Masters at Edinburgh University.  The reason why Copenhagen managed to stay that way could be due to the sparsity of its population but high productivity.
Our objectives are actually the same. The way to reach them are different. Your liveable appears to be travelling the least distance in order to have a sustainable and carbon-neutral city.
Maybe you are not aware of other technological advances. Read more about Elon Musk, but in some ways I am more advanced that Elon Musk.

We can move with zero energy. This is not against any law of physics. Once you realise that, you realise that people can move efficiently using vehicles at far distances with the least energy and congestion.
Hyperloop is a very famous example but that proposal is only a part of my proposal for a Zero Energy Transportation system.

Again. I would like to thank you for all your responses. They are most helpful indeed.
 
 
 
I was in a hurry in my last reply so I would like to correct my mistakes and explain more.
I shall attach new diagrams for KK and Basildon proposals.

Please refer to my comments below:


On Fri, Nov 29, 2019 at 5:13 PM Edward Leigh <edward@smartertransport.uk> wrote:
Dear Othman bin Ahmad,

It occurs to me that your proposal is really a reinvention of the roundabout, which achieves what you seek: filtered merging of traffic avoiding conflicting movements that (typically) require traffic lights.

Small roundabouts still require road crossings which is dangerous and not efficient.
Let me explain about the meaning of gaps.

Here is a real-world example of a half-roundabout, which is close to what you've drawn:

The road designers have missed the opportunity to remove any road crossing in 3 T-junctions by using just two No-crossing U-turns.
Small roundabouts are not efficient and dangerous because of road crossings.

Incidentally you described very well what a congested state is: "there is a self-control mechanism, whereby cars entering the highway will not be able to when maximum flow rate is achieved simply because the gaps are so short that new cars cannot enter the highway anymore."
The gaps are not fixed. They vary. The smallest gap should be when you drive in the same direction.
Merging should be slightly longer.
Road crossings, require even longer gaps.
If the gaps are long, then the efficiency of road utilisation is lower.

No-crossing U-turns use mergings instead of crossings so should be much more efficient, but the main criteria is actually safety.
The other important criteria is balanced flow. All along the highway, the traffic flow must be the same. Any reduction in traffic flow capacity,
will be inefficient because the maximum capacity that the highway can handle should be just the minimum traffic flow capacity along the highway.

Please note that speed has little to do with flow capacity. This is the fundamental principle that I had used in NCUT and slow speed underpasses, to remove traffic jams.
A lot of people do not understand it or just do not want to believe it. When I discovered it, I thought I was the inventor, but actually, someone else had invented it and it is incorporated in HCW, (Highway Capacity Manual)
of the US Department of Transport.

Traffic lights will reduce traffic flow capacity by half or even 1/3 or less in 3 or more -way allowances, especially during congestion. You may say that it only occurs during worst case
scenario, but good engineers must design for the worst case scenario.

Just imagine designing a water pipe. A 2-in pipe/drain feeding into a 1-in pipe/drain will certainly cause overflow, and certainly inefficient because you waste the capacity of the 2-in pipe/drain.
Better use 1-in pipe throughout. Otherwise you waste capacity.

So the moment there is a traffic light, all the roads feeding into the traffic lights are wasted because they are not utilised to the full.
Worse, you create traffic jams by giving a false impression that the highway can handle the traffic flow.

If we know that a highway is loaded to capacity, but not yet jammed, users will avoid using the road at that time, or will not be able to enter the highway because of insufficient gap to enter safely.
This is a very important factor because there are proposals to setup gates to the entrances of highways. These gates are computer controlled to monitor the traffic flow along the highway.

It will be too expensive. It can be replaced by designing with balanced continuous traffic flow along the highways. You can only do it if you eliminate traffic lights.

That is why, when I see any recommendations to improve traffic lights, I know the recommendation is useless and will create more traffic jams.

That definition applies to any road network, howsoever configured.
So your conclusion is not valid. You do not take into account the different gaps in each configuration.
 
Congestion is an equilibrium state: the longer the delays, the more intolerable they become. Some people who can change their travel origin (e.g. move home), destination (e.g. change job) or time will do so to avoid the congestion.

You must define what you mean by delay, intolerable. Users may not agree with you.




 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Removing Traffic Lights within City Centre of Kota Kinabalu

You can remove traffic light within the city, and do not allow right crossing. Only left crossings. No need to convert all roads into one-way streets. However, you need to create two no-crossing U-turns by converting roads around buildings at the edges of the city centre into one-way streets. These U-turns are required to do the right turns. Of course, roads not covered by the U-turns, will not be able to do right turns.
Post a Comment
Read more

Traffic lights cause jams

Traffic lights cause jams. They worsen congestion by reducing lane capacity by half. This causes more congestion instead of relieving the congestion. When no congestion, lane Capacity is full, but with more traffic, the lights reduce them to half, making the congestion worse, so causing jams. I wonder why ignored by planners. Not even in textbooks the subject of congestion. Even journals never have a consistent definition of congestion. For drivers, cars not moving is called traffic jam. Not to the civil Engineers because at Traffic lights, cars do not move also. The solution is simple. Remove all traffic lights but forbid right turns. To turn right, you must do U-turns. Not difficult in cities because there are lots of buildings. These buildings are huge roundabouts. One other solution is one-way street. It was proposed by a consultant 10 years ago. Dr. Tan. I didn't support but now I understand why.
Post a Comment
Read more