Unit 2: Research Paper 1 GS1140

The speed limit is 65 mph and I’m at a stand-still! Why must this happen every morning and afternoon? Traffic will always be an ongoing problem. The more the population grows, the more congested our roads get with more vehicles. Besides leaving hours before traffic starts to avoid traffic jams there has to be another solution. Some solutions include: employee parking cash-out, tolls for single use carpool lanes, and tolls during high peak hours on freeways.
An employee cash-out can reduce the amount of vehicles on the road by giving an incentive not to drive (Bullokk, 2011). Companies would give a certain amount each month to the employee who participates in the program. Through data mining, the decrease in the demand of parking can be obtained. The information needed to gather this would be: the number off employees in the program, the financial incentive amount, and the amount of time the incentives were given at separate but equal intervals (Bullock, 2011). A decrease in cars on the road would limit the amount of traffic on the road and also free up precious parking space.
Tolls for single use carpool lanes will also benefit in decreasing traffic. The carpool lane is mostly always free of traffic during rush hours which is good for carpoolers, but also counter intuitive. The carpool lane turns into a wasted lane if people are not taking advantage of carpooling. Sensors can be placed in cars to automatically charge the fare for using carpool lanes during rush hours (Bullock, 2011). Commuters will pay for the device and conveniently register on an online website that monitors the use of the charges.
In addition to tolls utilized for carpool lanes, they can also be used for high traffic during peak times. The same sensor devices used for carpool lanes can be used for computer monitoring for congestion pricing, also known as demand pricing (Bullock, 2011). The computer monitoring will also be able to monitor the average speed, which can aid in calculating traffic congestion. It would be very expensive to add more lanes, so to be more cost-effective, using existing lanes would greatly benefit in the decrease of traffic (Bullock, 2011).