Individual congestion costs for private motorized vehicle users : a case study of mall road corridor and circular road corridor, Lahore

Abstract

Traffic congestion has severe effects on the economy, human well-being, safety and environment and almost all countries of the world either developing or developed are somehow affected by its adverse impacts. Lahore as a Metropolitan City faced numerous problems because of traffic congestion which puts direct effect on number of economic activities. Numerous studies have been performed in the past to estimate the congestion costs. However this study mainly focuses on the estimation of individual costs due to traffic congestion and the effects of sociodemographic factors on individual congestion costs of private motorized vehicle users. In this study proposed individual traffic congestion cost equation to estimate the costs whereas some statistical test i.e. ANOVA and T-test have been used to identify the effects of socio-demographic factors on individual congestion costs. This study is totally based on the primary data which was collected through filling of questionnaire from the respondents. The sample size for this study was 282 with confidence level 95% and sampling error 6%. The results of the study revealed that the individual congestion costs of the respondents lies between 22 Rs per day to 793 Rs per day. ANOVA and T-test suggests that that all the socio-demographic factors are effective in estimating the individual congestion costs. This research also revealed that the respondents who owned a car have more individual congestion costs as compared to the one who owned a motorbike. The expected contribution of this study will help the private motorized users to anticipate their cost so that they can effectively manage their vehicle expenses. Moreover it will also encourage people to change their travel behaviour to use transport effectively in their daily activities.