Inrix does some fantastic things with its technology. I can get from here to there quicker because of them. They also collect data about traffic and how much time we spend in traffic. That is useful data for cities to determine where to invest in infrastructure to reduce traffic congestion.
They have published a report that list the worst traffic “hotspots” and of course Los Angeles is the worst, with freeway a half mile from my home the worst of the worst. Fair enough. (Go to Parknews.biz and search for “Inrix.”)
They have computed the amount of time/money wasted due to this congestion and come up with a number somewhere north of two trillion dollars. I got to thinking about this and wondered how they came up with the numbers. They were nice enough to include a description. Here goes:
The annual amount of time wasted at each traffic hotspot is estimated by assuming: the average traffic hotspot had two lanes of traffic; a vehicle density of 150 vehicles per mile; and vehicle occupancies based on national statistics. Multiplying these numbers by a hotspot’s Impact Factor produces an estimate of the amount of time wasted at each hotspot. An annual cost of this time can be made by multiplying the time wasted by six (the study covered two months) and converted into economic values by multiplying it by the value of time derived depending upon trip purpose from USDOT statistics. These costs are assumed to accrue for 10 years but future costs are discounted by the social discount rate of seven percent per year, set by U.S. Treasury Department, because flows that we pay or receive in the future are worth less to us in today’s money.
Wow. I defy anyone to tell me what that means. I have been a tad suspect when someone says something intangible ‘costs’ a certain amount. Time spent in traffic costs $NN. Really.
Lets take a scenario — If I’m driving to work and each day my commute takes an hour because of congestion. If there were no congestion it would take half an hour. Does that mean that I would arrive at work half an hour early and put my nose to the grindstone half an hour more each day? I don’t think so. It would mean that I would leave home half an hour later, sleep longer, stay up later the night before, or whatever, but I doubt I would spend more time at work.
I can understand that UPS and Fedex have to factor in more trucks because of congestion, but those were not the kinds of issues listed in the description above. I can see that the UPS and Fedex may charge a tad more to deliver because of congestion, but how do office workers sitting in congestion affect the products they provide? Where is that charge factored in? (By the way, I seldom see Fedex or UPS on the freeway. They are on surface streets making deliveries, and when they are on the freeway, its at 3 AM when there is little or no congestion.)
I suppose I could put a cost to every action I take. If I spend an extra one minute brushing my teeth, and factor in everyone in the country who brushes their teeth, then I could say that billions are lost each year for overteeth brushing. Right? Or reading the paper (take up speed reading) or walking (speed up) or sleeping (why not get up 10 minutes early).
This is not to say congestion should be ignored, and it is a pain in the bum, but who gets the money saved when we solve the problem? And we will. Inrix has helped a lot.
JVH
