Optimism Bias in Transport Planning

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In 2005, Professor Bent Flyvbjerg identified two main causes of misinformation in policy and management: strategic misrepresentation (lying) and optimism bias (appraisal optimism).

Strategic misrepresentation is the planned, systematic distortion or misstatement of fact—or lying—in response to incentives in the budget process.

Optimism bias or appraisal optimism is the demonstrated systematic tendency for people to be overly optimistic about the outcome of planned actions. This includes over-estimating the likelihood of positive events and under-estimating the likelihood of negative events.

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Should we consider preventing traffic incidents?

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Rising traffic congestion in urban areas has resulted in an increased focus on the economic, financial and travel reliability impacts. Understanding traffic incident causation and then an increased emphasis on prevention, has the potential to significantly reduce the number and impact of traffic incidents.

It is instructive to look at the extensive research in the causes of crashes and the development of a body of knowledge on traffic safety countermeasures and injury prevention. There is little published research into causes of traffic incidents.

Anecdotally causes of traffic incidents include such things as inattention, careless or reckless driving behaviour, excessive speed, poor judgement, impairment (alcohol, fatigue, drugs etc), distraction, poor loading of goods vehicles, insufficient fuel, unroadworthy vehicles, road works and adverse weather.

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Can technology make trips more reliable?

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Traffic information services have evolved from delivering basic guidance to users (such as the location of specific incidents or major congestion) to offering real-time traffic flow data and now to helping drivers make better decisions by providing real time and predictive information.

As car drivers we don’t like everyday traffic congestion, but we become used to it and plan for it. We leave early enough to get to where we are going on time. But unexpected congestion is another thing. We hate it. As you approach a traffic jam that you were not aware of (and its too late to do anything about it!) – this is the first level of traffic information.

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Can quick clearance solve the challenge of congestion gridlock?

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Congestion is a major economic, social and environmental issue in most large urban centres around the world. The inability to build sufficient new infrastructure to meet the demand results in recurring congestion. But significant congestion also occurs from temporary reductions in capacity, with an increasing number of major traffic incidents occurring in the high traffic flows, such as vehicle breakdowns, spilled loads and crashes.

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Smart motorway management: what is happening with traffic in Australia?

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Is management of Australian motorway traffic getting smarter?

Over the past five years references to traffic congestion by political and non-transport commentators in Australia has been increasing. The recently released Henry Review of Taxation included the need to ‘increase the efficiency of use and investment in roads by a program of road reforms that includes greater use of road user charges, including congestion charges’. The national government has deferred consideration of this recommendation.

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What is transport demand?

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The demand for transport is a derived demand, an economic term, which refers to demand for one good or service in one sector occurring as a result of demand from another. Users of transport are primarily consuming the service not because of its direct benefits, but because they wish to access other services. Transport demand … Read more

Service Patrol Handbook

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This FHWA Handbook provides an overview of the Full-Function Service Patrol (FFSP) for traffic incident response and management and describes desired program characteristics from the viewpoint of an agency that is responsible for funding, managing, and operating the services. It provides guidelines and rules of thumb for operational characteristics, sponsorship, level of service, number of … Read more

Motor Mania

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Motor Mania is a cartoon made by the Walt Disney Company in 1950. In this madcap motoring animation, Goofy transforms into a Mr Hyde-type split personality, when he gets behind the wheel.

The cartoon shows how the character, as the pleasant, friendly and good-natured ‘Mr Walker’, undergoes a change in personality to the belligerent ‘Mr Wheeler’ when he gets behind the wheel of his car.

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