Is it time to go for no-car zone policies? Braess Paradox Detection

No-car zone is becoming a trend in many parts of the world, mainly driven by environmental motives. Recent data has shown that both vehicle kilometers traveled and car ownership are on the decline, especially in developed countries. This has been coupled with the rise of new urban mobility concepts such as smart mobility, car sharing, and green modes. Can the authors push for these policies without compromising traffic circulation? The Braess Paradox (BP) suggests that road closure can, in fact, improve traffic congestion; dubbed as the Braess Paradox Detection Problem (BPDP). This study aims to leverage the BP to boost the idea of the no-car zone. To this end, the authors formulate the BPDP as a bilevel problem and develop a heuristic methodology (a surrogate-based algorithm) to identify roads for closure in the heart of the cities to be reclaimed for green space, pedestrian plazas, and so on. Furthermore, the authors' proposed formulation considers travel demand elasticity resulting from road-closure schemes while solving for the BPDP. The authors test the methodology using a real dataset, the road network of Winnipeg. The results indicate strong evidence and justification supporting the idea of no-car zone even in the heart of highly congested cities.

• Record URL:
  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2019.01.021
• Record URL:
  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965856418308012
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/09658564
• Supplemental Notes:
  • © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Abstract reprinted with permission of Elsevier.
• Authors:
  • Bagloee, Saeed Asadi
  • 0000-0001-6078-6314
  • (Avi) Ceder, Avishai
  • Sarvi, Majid
  • Asadi, Mohsen
• Publication Date: 2019-3

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: Appendices; Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: pp 251-264
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice
  • Volume: 121
  • Issue Number: 0
  • Publisher: Elsevier
  • ISSN: 0965-8564
  • Serial URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/09658564

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Algorithms; Central business districts; Heuristic methods; Networks; Pedestrian areas; Roads; Traffic flow
• Identifier Terms: Braess' Paradox
• Uncontrolled Terms: Road closures
• Geographic Terms: Winnipeg (Canada)
• Subject Areas: Highways; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Planning and Forecasting; Policy;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01692409
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Feb 7 2019 1:54PM