History of Road Transportation Informatics

The growth of road traffic and the increasing inconvenience and environmental damage caused by road congestion require better use of the infrastructure for physical transport. Advanced Information Systems can provide this, but these require a communications infrastructure. This page covers the history of Road Traffic Management.

Historical Setting

Road transportation engineering, referred to as 'science' by some and characterized as 'art' or 'faith' by others is a relatively young specialism, although it finds its origin in the invention of the wheel, which is commonly assumed to have occurred about 5000 B.C. in Mesopotamia, the development of paved pathways (the first planned and engineered pathway dates from 3300 B.C. in England), and the domestication of animals. The synthesis of these three achievements offered humans the possibility to travel and to transport goods over distances that were many times larger than could be covered before. The scale of the daily urban system augmented and soon capacious human settlements occurred in the direct vicinity of crossings of roadways, inducing new travel demands. This, in turn, led to more efficient and effective (vehicular) transport developments, with respect to their extent, capacity and their condition.

In response, carriages and primitive coaches were introduced by the thirteenth century drawn by oxen and horses which could manage an average speed of up to 4 km/h (Boyer, 1959). In the seventeenth century these coaches became more convenient and were exploited by 'people of merit' (McKay, 1976) and eventually also by middle-class travelers. In the London of 1635, the number of public coaches grew (to several thousands) and gave rise to severe congestion. Horse-drawn buses followed, enabling urban transport for the mass around 1800, while in 1801 the first public goods railway and in 1807 the first passenger railway were introduced, using trams drawn by horses. The average travel speeds rose to about 8 km/h.

Technological reactions took place opposing the problems caused by horse-powered vehicles, several trams were powered with steam, compressed air, cable and, in 1879 in Berlin, by electricity. As a result of the further increased speed of travel (up to about 20 km/h) the daily activity space grew. The first successful self-powered vehicle was manufactured around 1800 using a steam engine based on the principle developed by James Watt. Later, the internal-combustion engine was constructed, which was used by Benz and Daimler, who independently developed the first gasoline-powered internal-combustion engine between 1882 and 1886. The Daimler engine is considered to be the direct ancestor of the engine that powers our present day car. The introduction of the first car shortly thereafter enabled private transportation for almost anyone and has been a major cause of twentieth-century social and industrial development. The car has also brought with it various environmental, economic and traffic problems. However, these all had their antecedents, which were considered just as insurmountable then as the car-caused problems today.

Contrary to common belief, traffic congestion did not begin with the car. Already in 45 B.C., Julius Caesar banned all regular vehicles from the center of Rome during day time in an attempt to manage the traffic. Various approaches have followed since, including

limiting market hours (which were a common cause of traffic congestion),
banning the driving of livestock (1867),
installation of fixed semaphore signals and lamps (1868),
installation of hand-controlled semaphore signals (1872),
requirement for car drivers to use hand signals to indicate their steering intentions (1902),
definition of right of way (1910),
location of traffic control towers (allowing a police officer to manually exercise intersection control) (1912),
installation of manually operated traffic lights (1912),
coordination of traffic lights (1917),
vehicle actuated traffic lights (1928),
and in 1924, the birth of transportation engineering.

The Netherlands' Department of Transportation estimates that in 1995 traffic congestion on the Dutch roads damaged the economy for about 1 Billion USD. 62,300,000 man-hours were lost waiting in traffic jams. In 1993, delays amounted to about 50 Million hours.

Road Transport Informatics

Within the field of transportation engineering, the field of transportation telematics is much younger. We interpret transportation telematics to be the application of telematics to (road) traffic and transport aiming at enhancing the whole process of transportation (i.e., with respect to efficiency, reliability, safety, etc.). This specialism can best be considered to have been originated both as a reaction to the car-caused problems (society pull) and as a result of emerging new technologies (technology push). Transportation telematics probably had its genesis in the beginning of the 1970s in Japan, where several technological programs were conducted to cope with the large number of traffic deaths and injuries as well as the structural ineffective traffic process. In Europe the first formalized transportation telematics program PROMETHEUS (PROgraM for European Traffic with Highest Efficiency and Unprecedented Safety) (PROMETHEUS, 1989) was initiated by European automotive companies in 1986 as an EUREKA project, while in 1988 the DRIVE program (Dedicated Road Infrastructure and Vehicle Environment) was set up by the European authorities (DRIVE, 1990). The USA followed in 1990 by forming Mobility 2000 in 1989 and in 1990 by establishing the IVHS program (Intelligent Vehicle Highway Systems) (IVHS, 1992), that has been renamed into ITS (Intelligent Transportation System) in 1994.

Effects of Transportation Telematics

First Order Telematics Effect: Substitution

This effect occurs when a relative increase in the generalized resistance of either telematics or physical transport increases the demand for the other, and so physical trips are substituted by telematics and vice versa for certain trip motives and certain trips. Motivations and support for the hypothesis that introduction of telematics in traffic and transport induces substitution is reported in for instance (Harkness, 1973; Miller, 1980; Gassend, 1982; Kraemer, 1982; Meyburg, 1983; Kellerman, 1984). In (Mokhtarian and Salomon, 1993) the occurrence of this effect is illustrated by means of extensive, empirical surveys.

Second Order Telematics Effect: Complementation

This effect occurs when consumption of either telematics or physical transport increases consumption of the other, and so, under certain conditions, the modest resistance of telematics interactions will generate an additional demand for physical interactions. Motivations and support for the hypothesis that introduction of telematics in traffic and transport induces complementation is reported in for instance (Clark and Unwin, 1982; Meyburg, 1983; Salomon, 1985; Salomon, 1986). In (De Ben, Immers and Hamerslag, 1990) this effect has already been observed and in (Claisse and Rowe, 1993) this relation is empirically analyzed. For an on-going debate whether telematics (or telecommunication) and (physical) traffic are substitutes or complements we refer to (Salomon, 1986; Mokhtarian, 1990; Mokhtarian and Salomon, 1993; Selvanathan and Selvanathan, 1994).

Third Order Telematics Effect: Optimization

This effect denotes optimization of the (utilization of the) available road infrastructure by informing, coordinating and regulating flows of physical traffic over this infrastructure using telematics technologies.

Fourth Order Telematics Effect: Spatial Interaction

This effect represents long term transformation of the land use by telematics affecting the human interaction- and settlement behaviour and so altering the physical mobility. Various studies into the relation between transport and landuse have been performed in the past, see for instance (Hupkes, 1977; Wigan, 1984; Nilles, 1991) or (Hamerslag and Westerman, 1992) for hypothetical future prospects.

Fifth Order Telematics Effect: Supplementation

This effect conveys the influence of additional or supplementary capacity provided by a telematics infrastructure to overcome the structural surplus between the demand for interactions and the digestive capacity of the existing physical infrastructure. The occurrence of this effect is based on (Marchetti, 1985) in which a periodic life cycle of (among others things) transportation systems has been observed.

Bibliography

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Boyer, M.N., "Medieval Suspended Carriages", Speculum 34, July, 1959, pp. 359-366.
Claisse, G. and F. Rowe, "Domestic Telephone Habits and Daily Mobility", Transportation Research A, Vol. 27, No. 4, 1993, pp. 277-290.
Clark, D. and K. Unwin, "Telecommunications and Travel: Potential for Rural Areas", Regional Studies, Vol. 15, 1982, pp. 47-56.
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Hamerslag, R. and M. Westerman, "Quantitative Relationship between Traffic, Infrastructure and Environment", Proceedings of the 25th ISATA Conference, Florence, Italy, June, 1992, pp. 63-70.
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IVHS, Intelligent Vehicle Highway Society of America, "IVHS America Five-Year Program Plan (1992-1996), Washington D.C., June, 1992.
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McKay, J.P., "Tramways and Trolleys", Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1976.
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PROMETHEUS, "Functions or How to Achieve PROMETHEUS Objectives", issued by PROMETHEUS Office, Stuttgart, July 1989.
Salomon, I., "Telecommunications and Travel: Substitution or Modified Mobility?", Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, September, 1985, pp. 219-235.
Salomon, I., "Telecommunication and Travel Relationships: a Review", Transportation Research A, Vol. 20, No. 3, 1986, pp. 223-238.
Selvanathan, E.A. and S. Selvanathan, "The Demand for Transport and Communication in the United Kingdom and Australia", Transportation Research B, Vol. 28, No. 1, 1994, pp.1-9.
Strong, L.A., "The Rolling Road", London, Hutchinson, 1956.
Taylor, C., "Roads and Tracks of Britain", London, Dent, 1979.
Vaknalli, S., "Indian Roads from Rig Veda to Raj to Republic", Highway engineering, Vol. 6, No. 27, 1980, pp. 40- 41.
Wigan, M., "Computer Network and Transport Interactions", Australian Road Research Board, Report No. AIR 1118-8, Vermont South, Victoria Australia, 1984.
More Literature on Road Traffic Informatics

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Chapter: Network Concepts and Standards Section: Road Transportation Informatics