Why does Congestion Occur?
Congestion generally occurs for one or more well-known reasons. The US Department of Transportation breaks these down into two main categories. Those categories are physical capacity issues and traffic-influencing events. Physical capacity issues are “locations where the physical capacity is restricted, with flows from upstream sections (with higher capacities) being funneled into smaller downstream segments.” much like a stream during a rainstorm. Traffic-influencing events include vehicle accidents, work zones, inclement weather, and other special events. (Castillo, 2023)
Bottlenecks
A Traffic Bottleneck is defined as “A localized section of highway that experiences reduced speeds and inherent delays due to a recurring operational influence or a nonrecurring impacting event”.(Federal Highway Administration, 2019c) Roadway features such as lane drops on and off ramps, and freeway interchanges are all common bottlenecks that drivers encounter every day.
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