The Relative Roles of Socioeconomic Factors and Governance Policies in Urban Traffic Congestion: A Global Perspective

Abstract

There is still doubt about how to accurately distinguish the objective and subjective factors that affect traffic congestion. This study aims to re-examine the role of socioeconomic factors and governance policies in the variation of urban traffic congestion from a global perspective at the macro-social development level. The heterogeneous characteristics of the traffic congestion index under the influence of changes in governance policies and variations of social–economic factors are distinguished through a residual trend model. Different time scenarios are addressed in the study to assess the respective contribution of socioeconomic factors and governance policies to variations of traffic congestion, which is helpful for identifying the most destructive factors and the most effective combination of governance policies. Taking Beijing City as the case, the results show that the social-economic factors and governance policies jointly drive congestion fluctuations, but the contribution of governance policies is greater. In addition, governance policies play an important role in alleviating traffic congestion, but unfortunately, an unreasonable combination of governance policies is also the chief culprit for the rise of the traffic congestion index in certain periods. The findings presented here can make us understand macro-mechanisms in response to urban traffic congestion and provide evidence for formulating regional development policies.

Analysis of Urban Congestion Traceability: The Role of the Built Environment

“…Yang and Debbage [31] conducted a quantitative analysis on the relationship between urban development patterns and traffic congestion in 2011 US city regions from 1998 to 2001, finding a close link between increased urban land use intensity and worsening congestion. Sun and Lu [32] assessed the contributions of socioeconomic factors and governance policies to congestion changes, finding socio-economic factors contributed 25% to congestion increases and 66% to decreases. Additionally, Bao et al [33] studied the temporal heterogeneity of land use factors in urban traffic congestion, discovering negative impacts of dining land use during peak times.…”

Spatiotemporal Linkages between Administrative Division Adjustment and Urban Form: Political Drivers of the Urban Polycentric Structure

“…Although urbanization has created remarkable economic achievements, it also results in serious urban diseases. Problems such as housing shortages [3], traffic congestion [4], air pollution [5] and resource constraints [6] may occur due to the dramatic urban growth and negative externalities of agglomeration. To alleviate the issue of overcrowded cities and promote human-centric approaches to new-type urbanization strategies, the focus of urban growth is gradually changing from extensive expansion to structure optimization [7].…”