Facts on 'Too Many Vehicles'

countries with most cars

China being one of the developing countries, has been one that imported the most cars with a total of approximately 18,350,000 units. Following it is USA.  A whole lot of countries manufacture cars in thinking that they would have huge incomes. This is true, but, unconsciously, they do not realize that they are endangering their people as well. In addition, these countries, have the most number of populations around the world. Humans are born everyday and there are a lot of people who are at that closing to that age (teens) where they would want to own a car. Think about it, a growth in population along with the increasing number of cars. This would certainly cause massive traffic.

The growth of vehicles population in Singapore has been increasing gradually over the past decade from 706,956 to 969,910 with private cars outnumbering every other vehicle. With the number this big, it is no wonder that road traffic happens on every corner of the city. Singapore alone produces vehicles as much as 1000 and the number of new car registering is approximately 47,555 annually, excluding imported vehicles and other public transports. If compared to the growth of Singapore’s population, the ratio reached between the increase of population and the number of vehicles is of 5:1, five times as much. While population increased slightly over 10% in 10 years, the number of vehicles rose over 20% through the period. This means that demands of cars are slowly getting out of hand and could possibly lead to an overflow of vehicles. Imagine a country like Singapore, one of the smallest, being occupied by a huge number of people and vehicles.

Solution to A Traffic

There are more than a handful of solutions out there that have been either conducted or suggested over the years. But are they capable of reducing traffic? That is the real question.

A study in Korea stated that there are two types of drivers: optimistic, those who leave little space in-between cars, and defensive, those who leave a more than necessary gap in-between. And that traffic occurs when these two drivers are traveling on the same route. This has been demonstrated by mathematical models and concluded that traffic would clear up only when optimistic drivers are leaving the jam and defensive drivers are arriving.

Undoubtedly, Korean roads are modern and well signposted

What have they come up with? An automated on-board control.
It is a system which could notify drivers of upcoming traffic so they could gradually slow down and increase distance from cars ahead. It would also accelerate the speed of a leaving car more by using automated cruise control. With vehicles cruising faster than they arrive, congestion would dissolve eventually.

The system is based on a medical initiative, Asthmapolis, which has implanted simple and clever tracking system to identify and determine where an inhaler would be used. This helps users in avoiding high-risk zones and detect when the attack will occur. An advance notice.

See more at: http://www.digitalforreallife.com/2011/11/say-goodbye-to-traffic-jams/#sthash.nJvMrnpY.dpuf
Read more about Korean driving habits: https://asadalthought.wordpress.com/tag/korean-traffic/ (img source)

Traffic in Singapore

Compared to the number of vehicles available in Singapore few decades ago, today the number has multiplied significantly. As a result, traffic has become a common problem in Singapore, not only to car drivers but also to pedestrians and public transportation users.

Traffic in Singapore has become inevitable since the intervention of technology. The world is battling against each other in order to create the perfect ‘machine’. And this is why demands of these machines never fail to cease, which leads us to a huge number of imported goods available in Singapore.

With many cars along the roads, it is good to know the time when congestion occurs or when the peak hours are. For example, Singapore’s daily traffic volume is recorded between 7:30am-7:00pm on weekdays only. Based on the results, the busiest period it between 8:00am to 9:00am and 6:00pm-7:00pm on weekdays as they are the usual times people go on and off of work.  And there is no traffic between 1 to 5am. Clementi is the worst suburb for morning commuting with Bukit Timah, Bishan and Jurong West coming in second, third and fourth consecutively.

By highlighting areas affected by congestion, the purpose is to enable people to consider alternative routes and departure times.

img source : TomTom.com

Traffic as it is

What is the cause of traffic? Too many vehicles. Humans. Unlimited Demands.

Production of vehicles in increasing year by year since the innovation of cars started. Now we have over 60 million cars (and counting) cars (motor vehicle) produced today. That means  165,000 new cars produced everyday. No wonder traffic is almost everywhere.

When one is stuck in traffic, certainly, he/she will feel anxious as they are late for work or school and that is when the blood pressure rises. One could also experience a back pain/joint stiffness, being in a car for hours sitting on the same position. You could not stretch for a minute in a car as for the compact space. Moreover, the honking of vehicles could cause mental stress that could cause disturbance in work, even when relaxing/sleeping. This could be bad for health mentally and physically. To top it off, one could lose the time spent with their family, friends, the time to have fun to hours stuck in traffic. This could also lead to mental stress, heart diseases.

With so many cars on a road, it could lead to road damage - the mass weight of the vehicles making it over limiting the maximum pressure it could hold, causing cracks, uneven surfaces. Government would spend much money to repair it and if this keep happening, taxes would eventually increase. Most definitely, no one would want that. What would you do then?

img source: biketoworkblog.com

Fossil Fuel

Everything that needs ignitions would likely need oil, but it is running out. Is there any alternative resources out there?

Beside the use of fossil fuel and its benefits into our lives, its consummation is getting out of control. Oil use in unequal: USA consumes about 22 barrels of oil a person annually while in some developing countries consummation is as low as 3 barrels of oil a person annually.

Fossil fuel has many disadvantages but confusingly, people do not realize that or it is because they just do not care at all. Look at our environment now. It is used to be green and filled with refreshing air. But now, it is covered with pollution; whether it is air or water. It is disrupting out way of living.

Air pollution for one, is damaging our bodies. Fossil fuel emits gaseous pollutants which are toxic to our heart and lungs, growing cancer to them. It is also damaging our atmosphere, especially the ozone layer which has the role of protecting our earth from UV rays harmful against our skin.

These gases also plays a role in polluting the water. First the gases emitted go to our atmosphere and precipitate the dry disposition of them. They can also stick in cloud water and when it rains it would pour the dispositions into out earth, causing acid rain, fog, snow, uncommon weather to an area. These deleterious chemical reaction then endanger the aquatic life as well as the pH of the ground. Think of it like this, we eat vegetables and meats. Once their lives are unbalanced and we eat them unknowingly. Eventually, we are the ones who would get sick. It is a chain reaction.

img source: diskordchicago.com

Case Study - Details

China is considered one of the busiest country in the world being a tourist city with over 2.23 million inhabitants (still growing). Because of the inevitable growth in the population, numbers of vehicles owned are also inevitably uprising as many of them buy a vehicle as soon as they get a driver’s license. Also, with no increase in road capacity as well as support of public transportations (low speed traffic flows), traffic congestion has become one of the main problem in China.

Some approaches they have considered adopting are effective but some are also ineffective. They focus on three instruments (physical, market and regulatory) such as improving public transport facilities, enlarging public buses system greatly, building a MRT, intelligent signal control system, completing urban road skeleton planning and urban transit network layout if they could successfully conduct all of them.

Comparison of Cars, Bus and Bicycle Capacity vs Space Occupied

On the other hand, though solutions like enlarging government subsidies, expanding urban development space, may likely to succeed, consequences are to be considered beforehand. Increasing capacity roads means that road are built on rural areas, people would hardly have a day of serenity. Despite it decreasing the traffic in the central, more people may want to travel through those new built roads and some still on the central. If this is the case, there would be more traffic than ever. Upon achieving these approaches, of course, a certain sum of money is necessary from government which means a rise on taxes.

img source: teeheehee.bostonbiker.org