June 11, 2024 • 33 mins
It’s not enough to know that traffic is bad and getting worse. We also need to know where, when, and why. TTI Senior Research Scientist and urban mobility expert David Schrank joins us to discuss the "how" of answering those questions.
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Episode Transcript
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Bernie Fette (00:14):
Hey everyone.
Welcome to ThinkingTransportation conversations
about how we get ourselves andthe stuff we need from one
place to another. I'm BernieFette with the Texas A&M
Transportation Institute.
Researchers at TTI have beenstudying traffic congestion for
decades. They've measured theintensity of roadway gridlock
(00:36):
and its financial cost goingall the way back to 1982. A
lot's happened since that time.
Economic ups and downs,population growth, interstate
migration, and even a globalpandemic. All of those factors
and more have influenced ourdaily traffic experience in
profound ways. Joining us todayfor a conversation on that
(01:00):
topic is David Schrank, asenior research scientist at
TTI and the primary author ofthe 2023 Urban Mobility Report.
Thanks for joining us. Dave.
Another repeat appearance foryou.
David Schrank (01:16):
I'm excited to be here. These are always a lot
of fun.
Bernie Fette (01:19):
I was hoping we could start with something
really basic and to somepeople, maybe something really
obvious. What causes trafficcongestion?
David Schrank (01:30):
It's pretty simple. When two objects want
to occupy the same space at thesame time, it creates
congestion. So the point iswith traffic, you know, we have
a lot of vehicles, a lot ofpeople trying to move to
similar locations at the sametime, and that creates traffic
congestion. You can probably goall the way back to the time of
(01:51):
the Romans and chariots andhorses and people on foot and
say they had congestion backthen. Similar to what we have
today. And unfortunately we'vebeen talking about congestion
for a lot of years and we'restill talking about it. It's
great for the career, but it'sstill frustrating as someone
trying to get places.
Bernie Fette (02:09):
And I think I remember just in past years, us
discussing this and thinking ofit in terms of a supply and
demand picture. You've got onlya limited supply of roadway
space, but you've got thedemand in the form of more and
more cars, trucks wanting tooccupy that space that you were
talking about. Is that still anaccurate way of looking at it?
David Schrank (02:33):
It's still an accurate way over time. How we
handle the capacity, how wehandle the demand has changed a
little bit because oftechnology of developments and,
and obviously now because ofwhat we learned coming into and
out of the pandemic with how wetravel, all these kind of
things affect it, but it stillboils down to how much capacity
(02:55):
you have and how much demandthere is for that
transportation system.
Bernie Fette (02:58):
Yeah, and as you said, this is a part of the
research program at TTI thatyou and your colleagues have
built a few careers upon withthe latest addition of the
Urban Mobility Report out now.
And that report tells us thatdelay per commuter nationwide,
that's one of your primarymeasures in the study. That was
(03:20):
54 hours. 54 hours wasted intraffic per commuter in America
by the most recent measure in2022. Pre-pandemic, it was 54
hours. The same. So we'reofficially back to normal,
right? Or am I oversimplifying?
David Schrank (03:41):
Well, we have a lot of measures and then that
one, it's showing that we'rebasically back to pre-pandemic.
And I think you would probably,if you ask a motorist in every
one of the urban regions inthis country, you'd probably
get a slightly different answerfrom them. What we've seen
coming out of the pandemic, andagain, what we're talking about
(04:02):
now is 2022 data, so it's nottoo far post-pandemic, is that
any given road in any givencity could feel as bad or worse
than it did to drive inpre-pandemic conditions. But
what we're still seeing is thata lot of cases, not every
(04:26):
roadway in every city is backto the AM and PM peak periods
of slogging your way throughtraffic,
Bernie Fette (04:35):
What we call rush hour.
David Schrank (04:36):
Take rush hours, the six, eight hours a day,
where in some of these largerregions you might have slow
traffic or even stop and gotraffic. We're not seeing it .
It's everywhere yet. And we'renot seeing that every city is
back to where it was. We'veseen a lot of growth in
congestion in some of the,we're not talking about the Los
(04:58):
Angeleses and the Chicagos andthe Washington DCs that have
kind of led the list for years.
They're still up there. Butwe've actually seen growth in
congestion in some of the onesthat are around a million
population, million and a half,the Nashvilles, the Salt Lake
Cities on the list where theymay never slowed down during
the pandemic maybe. Extrapeople were moving there. Yeah
(05:20):
. We don't really know for afact, but that's kinda what
we're seeing in the list isthat yes, generally the
aggregation of the number sayswe're back. Okay. But any given
city, maybe not.
Bernie Fette (05:33):
I think you're starting to get into where I
was hoping to go next with ourconversation, and that's to
look at the main takeaways fromthis year's report. And again,
I'm often guilty of trying tooversimplify these things, but
just to help us get our brainswrapped around the conditions
that are measured andillustrated in the report. I
(05:54):
kind of looked at this and sawthree takeaways, and so to the
extent that I may be ontosomething here, please
elaborate, and if not, thenplease correct me. But what I
thought we were seeing is,first of all, traffic
congestion, generally gettingback to pre pandemic levels,
which you just very brieflytouched on. Secondly, that
(06:16):
truck congestion, which issomething that you guys started
measuring several years ago,that wasn't part of the
original study I remember. Andwhat the implications are for
that increasing truckcongestion basically
everywhere. And then lastly,again, what I think you were
just barely touching on aminute ago, how in some ways
traffic congestion looks a lotlike it did before the
(06:39):
pandemic, but then in somecases it doesn't look like it
did before in terms of whatmorning and evening rush hours
look like, what congestionlooks like in the middle of the
day. So would you talk a littlebit more about where those
things are true, whetherthey're back to pre pandemic
levels, where is that true?
Where is it not, and why?
David Schrank (06:58):
Well, the why is a difficult question. Let me
start with that one firstbecause sure. There's a lot of
things at play for why we aretraveling, but there are a few
things that you mentioned whenyou were asking those questions
that point to some of maybe theleading causes of kind of where
we're at in 2022 traffic. Um,and I'm pretty sure everyone
(07:21):
listening to this is alreadythinking about what they're
seeing out their window today,which has changed since 2022.
But put that hat on, I think ayear or two ago. So you said,
are we back? I would say we arenearing pre pandemic as a
whole, but some of theinteresting things, and I'm
gonna kind of touch on thatlast question you had about, is
(07:43):
it similar? Is it not? Yeah .
What differences are there?
'cause this all goes together.
Okay. So one of the things thatwe see coming outta the
pandemic is that because ofhybrid work, you know, we
stayed home for work and thenwe started coming back into the
office a little bit, and it'sgradually climbed a little bit
(08:03):
more. But what we found is liketraffic on Monday in a lot of
cases was some of the lowesttraffic for the week, whereas
in the past it's been justanother workday, maybe not
quite as bad as a Friday formotorists, but Monday was a
pretty significant congestionday. Now what we see is Monday
(08:26):
is the lightest of the fiveweekdays in some cases by far.
And that has to do with thework from home. Actually taking
that Monday and being, youknow, maybe the one day I'm not
going into the office at all,Tuesday, Wednesday, and
Thursday, have climbed in theiramount of the delay that's
(08:48):
happening for the week andThursday's, almost catching
Friday. Friday was by far theworst traffic day of the week
in the past. And a lot ofreasons for that. Not only was
it a workday, but you also hadyour business travel trying to
wrap things up for the weekbefore the weekend. You had
your long weekend vacationerstrying to get outta town at
(09:11):
noon or whatever to start aweekend. You had things
happening on Friday night,whatever, Friday was your worst
traffic day of the week. Butnow Thursday's catching up, but
Monday is falling way behindthe others, again, because of
the hybrid work. What we'realso seeing now is the AM peak
period, the morning rush hoursdon't have quite the same feel
(09:33):
they did before the pandemic.
Yeah, there's congestion there,that's no question, but it
doesn't seem to be quite assevere as it did before or
pronounced, you might say. Andyou know, there may be some
reasons for that. One of thethings, you know, I want
everybody to step back andthink about is, prior to the
(09:56):
pandemic, when you wanted towork from home for a day, you
did it by teleconference,right? You were on these
conference calls and you didn'tsee the people you're working
with. You were on a telephonenumber coming out of pandemic.
Now we have all these visualprograms that allow you to do
teleconference with faces andboth audio and video. And
(10:19):
that's allowing us to changehow we handle our workday. And
you're hearing a lot ofanecdotal evidence, but you're
seeing it a little bit in thetraffic of maybe people are not
getting in their car to drivein the am peak period and
they're waiting until trafficdies down a little bit because
they can log in from home andbe productive on things and
(10:41):
then go in for that couplemeetings they have to have in
the middle of the day and maybeleave early before the PM peak,
or maybe not, but they couldavoid one peak or the other by
shifting how they handle theirworkday. Some of the traffic
numbers that we're seeing, alittle more congestion in the
middle of the day, especiallyon the freeways, which kind of
(11:04):
says maybe some of these longtrips are happening at other
times of the day. And that kindof points to maybe this hybrid
work environment is having aneffect not only in days of the
week, but within the dayitself.
Bernie Fette (11:19):
Would it be a stretch to say that people, by
sticking around home in themorning instead of contributing
to the morning rush hour, thatwe are seeing the creation of a
different rush hour in themorning? Is that a case where
we are creating a new normal?
David Schrank (11:37):
We'll have to wait and see another year or
two on this. Okay. But I mean,I am still seeing traffic
numbers around the country,still hearing this anecdotal
conversation that points to thefact that, yeah, I think we are
sort of changing our trafficand travel patterns for when
and where and how and why we'retraveling. And so the am peak,
(12:01):
the morning rush hours maybeshifted a little bit in time,
maybe not quite as bad as theywere in the past, but they're
still there. Right. Exactly howit's going to look going
forward. Yeah, there could besome changes there. And of
course, day of the week, whowould've thought years ago that
Monday would look, you know,like a pretty good traffic day.
(12:21):
Yeah.
Bernie Fette (12:22):
And you're also, I think, looking at the
conditions in the evening rushhour, which you call the peak
period for the end of the day.
And it sounds like that looks alittle more familiar to you in
terms of what rush hour in theafternoon and evening used to
be.
David Schrank (12:38):
I would say the evening looks more familiar to
motorists. Okay. Than thatmorning. Yes, it's probably in
a lot of corridors. Again, notquite as bad as it has been in
the past, but I would say it'scloser to what we've
experienced. And again, there'slots of reasons why the PM has
(12:58):
always been worse than the amwe all like to get home as
quick as we can and we're, wehaven't been quite as
interested in getting to workas quick as we can.
Bernie Fette (13:08):
Okay. Just simple as that.
David Schrank (13:09):
So there's a reason about everybody trying
to get in their car right atfive o'clock and head home.
Okay . Whereas in the , in thepast you might have left your
house at 5:00 AM 6:00 AM orwhatever else, to kind of avoid
things. So a lot of reasons forit. It goes back to your
conversation about supply anddemand. Mm-Hmm.
Bernie Fette (13:25):
Talk about truck congestion, if you would. What
are the implications fore-commerce as a a new normal,
not perhaps normal, but a muchmore common way for people to
shop?
David Schrank (13:36):
Well, I'll start before you even get to that
one. If we all think back tothe early, well, not just the
early days of the pandemic,when you couldn't find toilet
paper and you couldn't findbottled water and things like
that on the store shelves, andlater on you saw prices spiking
on goods that you needed tohave for the house and even
(13:57):
groceries and those kind ofthings. We had an issue where
our supply chain and logisticsthat we had come to know were
stretched and strained becauseof this complete overhaul of,
you know, sort of how we wereworking and living for the
better part of over a year.
Mm-Hmm. . And sothat supply chain stress caused
(14:21):
a lot of changes in ournetwork, in our system here in
the us . If you remember, ifyou're driving around, I'm sure
you saw these distributioncenters popping up, you know,
in places that they didn'texist before. And so what is
happening is that the companiesout there are trying to figure
out where they need toreposition themselves
(14:44):
logistically to be ready tohandle those peaks that we saw
during the pandemic. And sonumber one, we had our ports,
both waterway ports and inlandports were in a lot of stress
trying to keep up with thedemands of the pandemic. We had
these new distribution centersand warehouses and things
(15:04):
coming online. And so that'schanged truck traffic, truck
patterns in the US right? Maybenow we have a few thousand more
trucks on this freeway overhere than we had five years
ago. Then that leads us to howwe do our shopping. Now you
look at what's happening to thesort of big box retail and how
(15:26):
those are ebbing and flowingnow with how we do our
shopping, online shopping hasgrown dramatically in the last
5, 6, 7 years. And that changeswhere trucks are driving,
right? Because now, rather thana lot of truck last mile
deliveries to downtown officecomplexes, when we're working
(15:48):
from home, we're having thingssent to us, FedEx and UPS and
USPS there. And so it's changedthe traffic patterns for the
trucking industry and for allof freight. And so we're still
sort of catching up and tryingto optimize that truck traffic
in the US now with sort of ournew norm coming out of the
(16:13):
pandemic.
Bernie Fette (16:14):
We've talked a lot about COVID-19 and how that
has impacted traffic, but thepandemic hasn't really been the
only teacher on that front overthe course of the research that
you guys have done. We've alsohad economic ups and downs over
the past 40 years. Notably arather memorable one back in
2008, 2009, that had a prettyhuge impact, or at least a very
(16:38):
noticeable impact on trafficand the economy at the same
time . Can you talk a littlebit more about how those
historical examples affect thetraffic that we experience from
day to day ?
David Schrank (16:51):
Well, you're right, we have seen some of
these , uh, I'm gonna saysmaller because they were right
as far as the overall nationalimpact. These smaller
occurrences in the past, as youmentioned, 2000 8, 09, and a
lot of those were really feltmore regionally. So it might be
the high tech industry, whichwas primarily located in maybe
(17:14):
a dozen cities in the US wherethere was heavy impact on high
tech . You know, some of thosekind of areas experience more
of a downturn. And some havehad a six months, a year, two
years, or something of alighter congestion than they
had had before. So we're notunaccustomed to those kind of
(17:34):
things. What we saw in the lastfew years is across the board,
everywhere felt the pandemic.
And so, you know, for example,one of the things with 2008 and
09, you remember, is the fuelprices started going up. And so
you started hearing for thefirst time about people looking
(17:55):
at hybrid cars, trying to getbetter gas mileage. And so
we've had some of those kind ofthings happen in the past.
Again, knee jerk reaction, goget a hybrid car because the
fuel price is going up with thepandemic. It's been, we have
people, you know, switchingmodes of travel into electric
(18:16):
vehicles and things like that.
But we also have them investingmore in high tech gadgets and
things to make their work fromhome easier, make their work
from office easier and better.
Right? Right. Because high technow is way more prevalent in
our day-to-day work, becauseyou have to almost have a
camera on every computer. Youknow, every computer is now
(18:39):
connected to other people. Andit wasn't the case 10, 20 years
ago.
Bernie Fette (18:45):
You've talked about how congestion patterns
have been changing over theyears. For instance, what
constitutes rush hour haschanged as well. Does that mean
that the solutions have changedalso, the solutions to traffic
congestions are , if notsolutions, the remedies for
addressing it, that they havechanged as well?
David Schrank (19:06):
I would say those are always changing, but
it's not completely overhaulingthose solutions as much as it's
improving upon them. But beforeI get to the hybrid
conversation, you know, thingsthat we have had around for a
long time, incident managementprograms on our roadways to try
(19:27):
to clear crashes and stallvehicles and stuff faster,
freeway ramp metering, signaltiming, something as simple as
signal timing. All those kindsof things have been around
forever, but we're doing thembetter now because of
technological improvements.
Mm-Hmm . . And sothat's making us able to
(19:50):
stretch that capacity a littlefurther to keep roads open
longer before they start to,you know, breaking down with,
you know, slower speeds andthings. But the one thing that
we've always kind of wonderedabout was the demand side. And
you mentioned some instancesaround where we've had some
(20:10):
recessions and things likethat, or slow downs in certain
parts of the economy. Mm-Hmm.
. But this is thefirst time we got to see what
happens with big, long-termdemand changes. And what we saw
is, you know, that a smallamount of demand change could
make a huge impact on delayreduction.
Bernie Fette (20:30):
That's an intriguing notion, and I would
appreciate, and maybe otherlisteners would appreciate. Why
is that the case? Because itsounds like the benefit is
disproportional.
David Schrank (20:39):
Well, I have to give my visual here for
everyone. I think it wasWashington State, DOT many
years ago came up with thevisual of how to talk about
traffic. And that is if youpour rice, dry rice through a
funnel mm-Hmm ,it pours just fine until you
get to a certain point. Andthat one grain of rice starts
stacking it up, and then ittakes a while for it to
(21:02):
recover, basically, that youhave to pour the rice slower
into the funnel for it torecover. The same thing is kind
of true with traffic. Okay .
Sometimes it only takes one ortwo cars or a dozen cars or a
hundred cars to get to thatpoint where traffic says, okay,
I'm not comfortable, I'mslowing down. And you start
seeing the taillights andthings come on around you.
(21:24):
Sometimes it might be a fewtrucks, whatever the case may
be. It oftentimes just takesthat first start, meaning that
that car, that whatever, thatone extra one that we can't
handle, and that creates thisbackup. The same is kind of
true here when we're talkingabout this. Seven, eight, nine
(21:44):
percent travel reductioncreated like three or four
times that delay reduction. Andso it's when and where and how
those cars are being pulledout. If you pull 'em out of the
peak period when traffic demandis highest of the day, it can
have a huge effect if you pull'em out at two in the morning
(22:04):
when there's only a handful ofcars on the road, less effect.
So it's about when and where,but also how many, and that's a
big deal. Plus now you get intothis hybrid condition, and
that's one of the things that'svery different because if you
think back about telecommutingconversations we had 10 or 20
(22:27):
years ago, it was all about,I'm going to work from home on
this day. Mm-Hmm.. Right ? And that was it. That
was the conversation. Now yougo into your work week , and I
do the same thing. I look at mywork week and think, what days
do I need to go into the officethis week? Right ? What days
can I work from home this week?
And then on Wednesday I can goin, but I can also come home
(22:51):
early because I've got thatmidday meeting and it doesn't
require me there all day. So wehave this flexibility now in
our schedules that we didn'thave. And it's great from a
transportation perspective ofwe can now potentially squeeze
a little bit more outta thatcapacity because we've
lightened the demand a littlebit. But it does create
(23:13):
additional problem, which isthe volatility of that traffic.
Now, any given day, it couldlook like it did 20 years ago,
10 years ago, where we all getin our car, we in the morning,
we all drive in, and we allwait, you know, until the peak
and drive home in the evenings.
(23:33):
We just don't ever know whatdays those are gonna be now
because of this telework hybridwork environment where 10 or 20
percent of the workers might behome on a day, or they might be
back on the road on a day.
Bernie Fette (23:47):
So what would be the answer to that? For the
hybrid work arrangement to bemore structured?
David Schrank (23:53):
I think some of that's gonna take care of
itself as we continue to addmonths past the pandemic. We
are starting to understand moreabout our commute when we have
one. But some of that could beimproved perhaps by a little
bit of coordination betweenagencies and companies and
things, right . In the givenregion, especially the mega
(24:15):
companies in a region that havetens of thousands of workers
that may be hitting the road onany given day. You know, if we
can coordinate some of thosekind of things going forward,
you know , we have all thistechnology, right? It would be
nice to be able to say, okay,this company is gonna be
traveling on Tuesday and thisone's gonna do on Wednesday.
Right. And let everybody knowthat that would be a big help
(24:35):
going forward. Again, we wouldknow more about that demand.
Bernie Fette (24:38):
And I'll recall a study that TTI did several
years ago that you probablyremember as well, in which our
research staff took a look attraffic on a couple of very
specific holidays, state andfederal holidays in Austin,
Texas, and what not fortelework, but the stay at home
(24:59):
on a weekday conditions did foroverall delay on some otherwise
very congested on a dailybasis, highways and major
arterials in one major US city.
So that probably takes thewhole idea of structuring
telework or structuring thehybrid work arrangement to
(25:20):
something of an extreme whereyou had everybody that fit a
couple of conditions ordescriptions staying at home.
But that would also seem, Idon't wanna put words in your
mouth here, but it would alsoseem to lend some value to the
structure that we're bothtalking about. A little bit of
structuring that hybrid workarrangement so that you don't
(25:41):
have the lack of predictabilitythat you've mentioned.
David Schrank (25:45):
I do recall that. And just so everybody
else gets a little bit of aflavor for it, I think we
looked at a federal holiday.
Yeah. And we looked at afederal and state combination
holiday. Mm-Hmm.. And so you got some benefit
on the federal holiday, but notnearly like you did in Austin,
Texas, where there's a lot ofstate employees for the holiday
(26:06):
that was both federal state andyou know, maybe even schools
and banks and others that havethat same day. So you saw some
benefit from some workers, yousaw greater benefit from a much
larger pool of workers. Yeah .
And so what we would like to dogoing forward is have more of
those and make the day morepredictable. And you know ,
(26:28):
every now and then when the bigcompany says, all right , we're
having our all hands on deckmeeting today, make it known,
Hey, this first Tuesday of themonth is always our all hands
on deck meeting, so be readyfor it, everybody. Yeah .
Bernie Fette (26:42):
Yeah. You mentioned the phrase going
forward, so that's kind of whatI wanted to ask you about next.
You've been doing this researchfor quite a while . If a
research sponsor gave you ablank check, no restrictions on
the nature of the research,what would you focus on to try
(27:04):
and understand the wholetraffic congestion problem
picture better than you dotoday?
David Schrank (27:11):
Is there a limit on this podcast for how long I
can talk? Because this onecould go on a while, but I
think, again, I , we've talkedabout this. We've been doing
congestion mobility researchfor 30 plus years, and the
message has been congestion'sincreasing and you know, what
(27:32):
are we gonna do about it? Andour message has always been,
well, you're gonna have to usesome of everything to make a
difference, right? Constructionoperations, you know, you name
it, the full gamut. But I thinknow what we're seeing is we're
actually seeing how complextransportation is, and while in
the past we were, let's build aroad, widen a road, let's
(27:54):
operate it better, maybe manageit better. I think now what
we're seeing is it is way morecomplex. There's a lot more
layers to it. And we have toalso look at things besides
just that piece of road and howmany cars or trucks or buses
are on it, meaning that why arethey there? Is there a way that
(28:19):
we can do something differentto get them to either make that
trip at a different time,hybrid work example? Mm-hmm.
to bettercoordinate this traffic so that
maybe they , you know, that bigcompany A is on Tuesday and big
company B is on Wednesday. Soagain, that we are improving
(28:39):
the efficiencies of how we'removing to encourage more
activities that don't requirethat peak trip morning and
evening. How that ties todowntown work areas. You know,
it's, it's very complex. Do youneed all the parking you've
needed in the past? How do youredistribute that parking if
(28:59):
we're only gonna have 80percent of the folks parking
that have been there in thepast or something like that,
how does that relate todowntown businesses? This is a
way more complex conversationthan just how do we move more
people.
Bernie Fette (29:16):
It sounds like rather than just studying the
patterns of traffic congestionitself, you're talking about
understanding or working tounderstand the thought patterns
of the people who areessentially causing it. Again,
am I oversimplifying there oris that part of the approach?
David Schrank (29:35):
I would say that is actually pretty accurate. I
would sum it up by saying a lotof it now is trying to get to
the why's. Yeah . Why are theytraveling then ? And how can we
affect that travel? Is there amore efficient way to handle
that? Whether it's shift thetime, whether it's shift the
(29:55):
mode, whether it's not do it atall, and have it be a telework
hybrid day. We actually canlook at some of those things
now, and data obviously isgetting better for us to do
those kinds of things everyday. There's so many things now
that we'd love to take a lookat to try to, again , pull
apart these trips. The whys,wheres , hows , because we have
(30:18):
data now and we have some newideas since again, those layers
of the onion Yeah . Have beenpulled apart for us.
Bernie Fette (30:24):
Yeah. You're asking questions now that you
weren't asking 10 years ago.
David Schrank (30:29):
Let me say I think that's a good point.
We've always tended to be morereactive to needs, and now
we're reacting still because westill have to provide
transportation for residents,but we're also trying to be
proactive and figure out how wecan maybe get ahead of some of
that travel and make it moreefficient.
Bernie Fette (30:49):
Last question, what is it that motivates you
to get up and come to workevery day?
David Schrank (30:54):
Well, that's a good question. So again, from
somebody who studied congestionfor, you know , 30 plus years,
the last five years has beenfascinating because again, it's
led us kind of look underneaththe hood at what's going on,
and it's created all kinds ofnew questions now that we're
(31:15):
driving, ha ha , no punintended toward the answers.
And hopefully what it's goingto do is make us have a more
efficient transportation systemdown the road for decades to
come.
Bernie Fette (31:28):
David Schrank, senior research scientist at
TTI and expert in all thingstraffic gridlock. This has been
fascinating and enjoyable asusual, Dave. Thank you so much
for sharing your time with us.
David Schrank (31:43):
Thanks for having me, as always.
Bernie Fette (31:47):
For many years, TTI's Urban Mobility Report has
been viewed as the industry'sdefinitive resource on the
causes, conditions, and costsof roadway gridlock.
Transportation planners andpolicy makers alike have relied
upon the UMR to guide billionsin infrastructure investment,
and inform discussions that areaimed at making traffic flow
(32:10):
smoother. It's not enough toknow that traffic is bad and
getting worse. We also need toknow where, when, and why.
Thanks for listening. Pleasetake just a minute to give us a
review, subscribe, and sharethis episode, and please join
us next time for anotherconversation about getting
(32:31):
ourselves and the stuff we needfrom point A to point B.
Thinking Transportation is aproduction of the Texas A&M
Transportation Institute, amember of the Texas A&M
University system. The show isedited and produced by Chris
Pourteau. I'm your writer andhost, Bernie Fette. Thanks
(32:52):
again for joining us. We'll seeyou next time.
Hey everyone.
Welcome to ThinkingTransportation conversations
about how we get ourselves andthe stuff we need from one
place to another. I'm BernieFette with the Texas A&M
Transportation Institute.
Researchers at TTI have beenstudying traffic congestion for
decades. They've measured theintensity of roadway gridlock
(00:36):
and its financial cost goingall the way back to 1982. A
lot's happened since that time.
Economic ups and downs,population growth, interstate
migration, and even a globalpandemic. All of those factors
and more have influenced ourdaily traffic experience in
profound ways. Joining us todayfor a conversation on that
(01:00):
topic is David Schrank, asenior research scientist at
TTI and the primary author ofthe 2023 Urban Mobility Report.
Thanks for joining us. Dave.
Another repeat appearance foryou.
David Schrank (01:16):
I'm excited to be here. These are always a lot
of fun.
Bernie Fette (01:19):
I was hoping we could start with something
really basic and to somepeople, maybe something really
obvious. What causes trafficcongestion?
David Schrank (01:30):
It's pretty simple. When two objects want
to occupy the same space at thesame time, it creates
congestion. So the point iswith traffic, you know, we have
a lot of vehicles, a lot ofpeople trying to move to
similar locations at the sametime, and that creates traffic
congestion. You can probably goall the way back to the time of
(01:51):
the Romans and chariots andhorses and people on foot and
say they had congestion backthen. Similar to what we have
today. And unfortunately we'vebeen talking about congestion
for a lot of years and we'restill talking about it. It's
great for the career, but it'sstill frustrating as someone
trying to get places.
Bernie Fette (02:09):
And I think I remember just in past years, us
discussing this and thinking ofit in terms of a supply and
demand picture. You've got onlya limited supply of roadway
space, but you've got thedemand in the form of more and
more cars, trucks wanting tooccupy that space that you were
talking about. Is that still anaccurate way of looking at it?
David Schrank (02:33):
It's still an accurate way over time. How we
handle the capacity, how wehandle the demand has changed a
little bit because oftechnology of developments and,
and obviously now because ofwhat we learned coming into and
out of the pandemic with how wetravel, all these kind of
things affect it, but it stillboils down to how much capacity
(02:55):
you have and how much demandthere is for that
transportation system.
Bernie Fette (02:58):
Yeah, and as you said, this is a part of the
research program at TTI thatyou and your colleagues have
built a few careers upon withthe latest addition of the
Urban Mobility Report out now.
And that report tells us thatdelay per commuter nationwide,
that's one of your primarymeasures in the study. That was
(03:20):
54 hours. 54 hours wasted intraffic per commuter in America
by the most recent measure in2022. Pre-pandemic, it was 54
hours. The same. So we'reofficially back to normal,
right? Or am I oversimplifying?
David Schrank (03:41):
Well, we have a lot of measures and then that
one, it's showing that we'rebasically back to pre-pandemic.
And I think you would probably,if you ask a motorist in every
one of the urban regions inthis country, you'd probably
get a slightly different answerfrom them. What we've seen
coming out of the pandemic, andagain, what we're talking about
(04:02):
now is 2022 data, so it's nottoo far post-pandemic, is that
any given road in any givencity could feel as bad or worse
than it did to drive inpre-pandemic conditions. But
what we're still seeing is thata lot of cases, not every
(04:26):
roadway in every city is backto the AM and PM peak periods
of slogging your way throughtraffic,
Bernie Fette (04:35):
What we call rush hour.
David Schrank (04:36):
Take rush hours, the six, eight hours a day,
where in some of these largerregions you might have slow
traffic or even stop and gotraffic. We're not seeing it .
It's everywhere yet. And we'renot seeing that every city is
back to where it was. We'veseen a lot of growth in
congestion in some of the,we're not talking about the Los
(04:58):
Angeleses and the Chicagos andthe Washington DCs that have
kind of led the list for years.
They're still up there. Butwe've actually seen growth in
congestion in some of the onesthat are around a million
population, million and a half,the Nashvilles, the Salt Lake
Cities on the list where theymay never slowed down during
the pandemic maybe. Extrapeople were moving there. Yeah
(05:20):
. We don't really know for afact, but that's kinda what
we're seeing in the list isthat yes, generally the
aggregation of the number sayswe're back. Okay. But any given
city, maybe not.
Bernie Fette (05:33):
I think you're starting to get into where I
was hoping to go next with ourconversation, and that's to
look at the main takeaways fromthis year's report. And again,
I'm often guilty of trying tooversimplify these things, but
just to help us get our brainswrapped around the conditions
that are measured andillustrated in the report. I
(05:54):
kind of looked at this and sawthree takeaways, and so to the
extent that I may be ontosomething here, please
elaborate, and if not, thenplease correct me. But what I
thought we were seeing is,first of all, traffic
congestion, generally gettingback to pre pandemic levels,
which you just very brieflytouched on. Secondly, that
(06:16):
truck congestion, which issomething that you guys started
measuring several years ago,that wasn't part of the
original study I remember. Andwhat the implications are for
that increasing truckcongestion basically
everywhere. And then lastly,again, what I think you were
just barely touching on aminute ago, how in some ways
traffic congestion looks a lotlike it did before the
(06:39):
pandemic, but then in somecases it doesn't look like it
did before in terms of whatmorning and evening rush hours
look like, what congestionlooks like in the middle of the
day. So would you talk a littlebit more about where those
things are true, whetherthey're back to pre pandemic
levels, where is that true?
Where is it not, and why?
David Schrank (06:58):
Well, the why is a difficult question. Let me
start with that one firstbecause sure. There's a lot of
things at play for why we aretraveling, but there are a few
things that you mentioned whenyou were asking those questions
that point to some of maybe theleading causes of kind of where
we're at in 2022 traffic. Um,and I'm pretty sure everyone
(07:21):
listening to this is alreadythinking about what they're
seeing out their window today,which has changed since 2022.
But put that hat on, I think ayear or two ago. So you said,
are we back? I would say we arenearing pre pandemic as a
whole, but some of theinteresting things, and I'm
gonna kind of touch on thatlast question you had about, is
(07:43):
it similar? Is it not? Yeah .
What differences are there?
'cause this all goes together.
Okay. So one of the things thatwe see coming outta the
pandemic is that because ofhybrid work, you know, we
stayed home for work and thenwe started coming back into the
office a little bit, and it'sgradually climbed a little bit
(08:03):
more. But what we found is liketraffic on Monday in a lot of
cases was some of the lowesttraffic for the week, whereas
in the past it's been justanother workday, maybe not
quite as bad as a Friday formotorists, but Monday was a
pretty significant congestionday. Now what we see is Monday
(08:26):
is the lightest of the fiveweekdays in some cases by far.
And that has to do with thework from home. Actually taking
that Monday and being, youknow, maybe the one day I'm not
going into the office at all,Tuesday, Wednesday, and
Thursday, have climbed in theiramount of the delay that's
(08:48):
happening for the week andThursday's, almost catching
Friday. Friday was by far theworst traffic day of the week
in the past. And a lot ofreasons for that. Not only was
it a workday, but you also hadyour business travel trying to
wrap things up for the weekbefore the weekend. You had
your long weekend vacationerstrying to get outta town at
(09:11):
noon or whatever to start aweekend. You had things
happening on Friday night,whatever, Friday was your worst
traffic day of the week. Butnow Thursday's catching up, but
Monday is falling way behindthe others, again, because of
the hybrid work. What we'realso seeing now is the AM peak
period, the morning rush hoursdon't have quite the same feel
(09:33):
they did before the pandemic.
Yeah, there's congestion there,that's no question, but it
doesn't seem to be quite assevere as it did before or
pronounced, you might say. Andyou know, there may be some
reasons for that. One of thethings, you know, I want
everybody to step back andthink about is, prior to the
(09:56):
pandemic, when you wanted towork from home for a day, you
did it by teleconference,right? You were on these
conference calls and you didn'tsee the people you're working
with. You were on a telephonenumber coming out of pandemic.
Now we have all these visualprograms that allow you to do
teleconference with faces andboth audio and video. And
(10:19):
that's allowing us to changehow we handle our workday. And
you're hearing a lot ofanecdotal evidence, but you're
seeing it a little bit in thetraffic of maybe people are not
getting in their car to drivein the am peak period and
they're waiting until trafficdies down a little bit because
they can log in from home andbe productive on things and
(10:41):
then go in for that couplemeetings they have to have in
the middle of the day and maybeleave early before the PM peak,
or maybe not, but they couldavoid one peak or the other by
shifting how they handle theirworkday. Some of the traffic
numbers that we're seeing, alittle more congestion in the
middle of the day, especiallyon the freeways, which kind of
(11:04):
says maybe some of these longtrips are happening at other
times of the day. And that kindof points to maybe this hybrid
work environment is having aneffect not only in days of the
week, but within the dayitself.
Bernie Fette (11:19):
Would it be a stretch to say that people, by
sticking around home in themorning instead of contributing
to the morning rush hour, thatwe are seeing the creation of a
different rush hour in themorning? Is that a case where
we are creating a new normal?
David Schrank (11:37):
We'll have to wait and see another year or
two on this. Okay. But I mean,I am still seeing traffic
numbers around the country,still hearing this anecdotal
conversation that points to thefact that, yeah, I think we are
sort of changing our trafficand travel patterns for when
and where and how and why we'retraveling. And so the am peak,
(12:01):
the morning rush hours maybeshifted a little bit in time,
maybe not quite as bad as theywere in the past, but they're
still there. Right. Exactly howit's going to look going
forward. Yeah, there could besome changes there. And of
course, day of the week, whowould've thought years ago that
Monday would look, you know,like a pretty good traffic day.
(12:21):
Yeah.
Bernie Fette (12:22):
And you're also, I think, looking at the
conditions in the evening rushhour, which you call the peak
period for the end of the day.
And it sounds like that looks alittle more familiar to you in
terms of what rush hour in theafternoon and evening used to
be.
David Schrank (12:38):
I would say the evening looks more familiar to
motorists. Okay. Than thatmorning. Yes, it's probably in
a lot of corridors. Again, notquite as bad as it has been in
the past, but I would say it'scloser to what we've
experienced. And again, there'slots of reasons why the PM has
(12:58):
always been worse than the amwe all like to get home as
quick as we can and we're, wehaven't been quite as
interested in getting to workas quick as we can.
Bernie Fette (13:08):
Okay. Just simple as that.
David Schrank (13:09):
So there's a reason about everybody trying
to get in their car right atfive o'clock and head home.
Okay . Whereas in the , in thepast you might have left your
house at 5:00 AM 6:00 AM orwhatever else, to kind of avoid
things. So a lot of reasons forit. It goes back to your
conversation about supply anddemand. Mm-Hmm.
Bernie Fette (13:25):
Talk about truck congestion, if you would. What
are the implications fore-commerce as a a new normal,
not perhaps normal, but a muchmore common way for people to
shop?
David Schrank (13:36):
Well, I'll start before you even get to that
one. If we all think back tothe early, well, not just the
early days of the pandemic,when you couldn't find toilet
paper and you couldn't findbottled water and things like
that on the store shelves, andlater on you saw prices spiking
on goods that you needed tohave for the house and even
(13:57):
groceries and those kind ofthings. We had an issue where
our supply chain and logisticsthat we had come to know were
stretched and strained becauseof this complete overhaul of,
you know, sort of how we wereworking and living for the
better part of over a year.
Mm-Hmm.
(14:21):
a lot of changes in ournetwork, in our system here in
the us . If you remember, ifyou're driving around, I'm sure
you saw these distributioncenters popping up, you know,
in places that they didn'texist before. And so what is
happening is that the companiesout there are trying to figure
out where they need toreposition themselves
(14:44):
logistically to be ready tohandle those peaks that we saw
during the pandemic. And sonumber one, we had our ports,
both waterway ports and inlandports were in a lot of stress
trying to keep up with thedemands of the pandemic. We had
these new distribution centersand warehouses and things
(15:04):
coming online. And so that'schanged truck traffic, truck
patterns in the US right? Maybenow we have a few thousand more
trucks on this freeway overhere than we had five years
ago. Then that leads us to howwe do our shopping. Now you
look at what's happening to thesort of big box retail and how
(15:26):
those are ebbing and flowingnow with how we do our
shopping, online shopping hasgrown dramatically in the last
5, 6, 7 years. And that changeswhere trucks are driving,
right? Because now, rather thana lot of truck last mile
deliveries to downtown officecomplexes, when we're working
(15:48):
from home, we're having thingssent to us, FedEx and UPS and
USPS there. And so it's changedthe traffic patterns for the
trucking industry and for allof freight. And so we're still
sort of catching up and tryingto optimize that truck traffic
in the US now with sort of ournew norm coming out of the
(16:13):
pandemic.
Bernie Fette (16:14):
We've talked a lot about COVID-19 and how that
has impacted traffic, but thepandemic hasn't really been the
only teacher on that front overthe course of the research that
you guys have done. We've alsohad economic ups and downs over
the past 40 years. Notably arather memorable one back in
2008, 2009, that had a prettyhuge impact, or at least a very
(16:38):
noticeable impact on trafficand the economy at the same
time . Can you talk a littlebit more about how those
historical examples affect thetraffic that we experience from
day to day ?
David Schrank (16:51):
Well, you're right, we have seen some of
these , uh, I'm gonna saysmaller because they were right
as far as the overall nationalimpact. These smaller
occurrences in the past, as youmentioned, 2000 8, 09, and a
lot of those were really feltmore regionally. So it might be
the high tech industry, whichwas primarily located in maybe
(17:14):
a dozen cities in the US wherethere was heavy impact on high
tech . You know, some of thosekind of areas experience more
of a downturn. And some havehad a six months, a year, two
years, or something of alighter congestion than they
had had before. So we're notunaccustomed to those kind of
(17:34):
things. What we saw in the lastfew years is across the board,
everywhere felt the pandemic.
And so, you know, for example,one of the things with 2008 and
09, you remember, is the fuelprices started going up. And so
you started hearing for thefirst time about people looking
(17:55):
at hybrid cars, trying to getbetter gas mileage. And so
we've had some of those kind ofthings happen in the past.
Again, knee jerk reaction, goget a hybrid car because the
fuel price is going up with thepandemic. It's been, we have
people, you know, switchingmodes of travel into electric
(18:16):
vehicles and things like that.
But we also have them investingmore in high tech gadgets and
things to make their work fromhome easier, make their work
from office easier and better.
Right? Right. Because high technow is way more prevalent in
our day-to-day work, becauseyou have to almost have a
camera on every computer. Youknow, every computer is now
(18:39):
connected to other people. Andit wasn't the case 10, 20 years
ago.
Bernie Fette (18:45):
You've talked about how congestion patterns
have been changing over theyears. For instance, what
constitutes rush hour haschanged as well. Does that mean
that the solutions have changedalso, the solutions to traffic
congestions are , if notsolutions, the remedies for
addressing it, that they havechanged as well?
David Schrank (19:06):
I would say those are always changing, but
it's not completely overhaulingthose solutions as much as it's
improving upon them. But beforeI get to the hybrid
conversation, you know, thingsthat we have had around for a
long time, incident managementprograms on our roadways to try
(19:27):
to clear crashes and stallvehicles and stuff faster,
freeway ramp metering, signaltiming, something as simple as
signal timing. All those kindsof things have been around
forever, but we're doing thembetter now because of
technological improvements.
Mm-Hmm .
(19:50):
stretch that capacity a littlefurther to keep roads open
longer before they start to,you know, breaking down with,
you know, slower speeds andthings. But the one thing that
we've always kind of wonderedabout was the demand side. And
you mentioned some instancesaround where we've had some
(20:10):
recessions and things likethat, or slow downs in certain
parts of the economy. Mm-Hmm.
happens with big, long-termdemand changes. And what we saw
is, you know, that a smallamount of demand change could
make a huge impact on delayreduction.
Bernie Fette (20:30):
That's an intriguing notion, and I would
appreciate, and maybe otherlisteners would appreciate. Why
is that the case? Because itsounds like the benefit is
disproportional.
David Schrank (20:39):
Well, I have to give my visual here for
everyone. I think it wasWashington State, DOT many
years ago came up with thevisual of how to talk about
traffic. And that is if youpour rice, dry rice through a
funnel mm-Hmm
get to a certain point. Andthat one grain of rice starts
stacking it up, and then ittakes a while for it to
(21:02):
recover, basically, that youhave to pour the rice slower
into the funnel for it torecover. The same thing is kind
of true with traffic. Okay .
Sometimes it only takes one ortwo cars or a dozen cars or a
hundred cars to get to thatpoint where traffic says, okay,
I'm not comfortable, I'mslowing down. And you start
seeing the taillights andthings come on around you.
(21:24):
Sometimes it might be a fewtrucks, whatever the case may
be. It oftentimes just takesthat first start, meaning that
that car, that whatever, thatone extra one that we can't
handle, and that creates thisbackup. The same is kind of
true here when we're talkingabout this. Seven, eight, nine
(21:44):
percent travel reductioncreated like three or four
times that delay reduction. Andso it's when and where and how
those cars are being pulledout. If you pull 'em out of the
peak period when traffic demandis highest of the day, it can
have a huge effect if you pull'em out at two in the morning
(22:04):
when there's only a handful ofcars on the road, less effect.
So it's about when and where,but also how many, and that's a
big deal. Plus now you get intothis hybrid condition, and
that's one of the things that'svery different because if you
think back about telecommutingconversations we had 10 or 20
(22:27):
years ago, it was all about,I'm going to work from home on
this day. Mm-Hmm.
was the conversation. Now yougo into your work week , and I
do the same thing. I look at mywork week and think, what days
do I need to go into the officethis week? Right ? What days
can I work from home this week?
And then on Wednesday I can goin, but I can also come home
(22:51):
early because I've got thatmidday meeting and it doesn't
require me there all day. So wehave this flexibility now in
our schedules that we didn'thave. And it's great from a
transportation perspective ofwe can now potentially squeeze
a little bit more outta thatcapacity because we've
lightened the demand a littlebit. But it does create
(23:13):
additional problem, which isthe volatility of that traffic.
Now, any given day, it couldlook like it did 20 years ago,
10 years ago, where we all getin our car, we in the morning,
we all drive in, and we allwait, you know, until the peak
and drive home in the evenings.
(23:33):
We just don't ever know whatdays those are gonna be now
because of this telework hybridwork environment where 10 or 20
percent of the workers might behome on a day, or they might be
back on the road on a day.
Bernie Fette (23:47):
So what would be the answer to that? For the
hybrid work arrangement to bemore structured?
David Schrank (23:53):
I think some of that's gonna take care of
itself as we continue to addmonths past the pandemic. We
are starting to understand moreabout our commute when we have
one. But some of that could beimproved perhaps by a little
bit of coordination betweenagencies and companies and
things, right . In the givenregion, especially the mega
(24:15):
companies in a region that havetens of thousands of workers
that may be hitting the road onany given day. You know, if we
can coordinate some of thosekind of things going forward,
you know , we have all thistechnology, right? It would be
nice to be able to say, okay,this company is gonna be
traveling on Tuesday and thisone's gonna do on Wednesday.
Right. And let everybody knowthat that would be a big help
(24:35):
going forward. Again, we wouldknow more about that demand.
Bernie Fette (24:38):
And I'll recall a study that TTI did several
years ago that you probablyremember as well, in which our
research staff took a look attraffic on a couple of very
specific holidays, state andfederal holidays in Austin,
Texas, and what not fortelework, but the stay at home
(24:59):
on a weekday conditions did foroverall delay on some otherwise
very congested on a dailybasis, highways and major
arterials in one major US city.
So that probably takes thewhole idea of structuring
telework or structuring thehybrid work arrangement to
(25:20):
something of an extreme whereyou had everybody that fit a
couple of conditions ordescriptions staying at home.
But that would also seem, Idon't wanna put words in your
mouth here, but it would alsoseem to lend some value to the
structure that we're bothtalking about. A little bit of
structuring that hybrid workarrangement so that you don't
(25:41):
have the lack of predictabilitythat you've mentioned.
David Schrank (25:45):
I do recall that. And just so everybody
else gets a little bit of aflavor for it, I think we
looked at a federal holiday.
Yeah. And we looked at afederal and state combination
holiday. Mm-Hmm.
on the federal holiday, but notnearly like you did in Austin,
Texas, where there's a lot ofstate employees for the holiday
(26:06):
that was both federal state andyou know, maybe even schools
and banks and others that havethat same day. So you saw some
benefit from some workers, yousaw greater benefit from a much
larger pool of workers. Yeah .
And so what we would like to dogoing forward is have more of
those and make the day morepredictable. And you know ,
(26:28):
every now and then when the bigcompany says, all right , we're
having our all hands on deckmeeting today, make it known,
Hey, this first Tuesday of themonth is always our all hands
on deck meeting, so be readyfor it, everybody. Yeah .
Bernie Fette (26:42):
Yeah. You mentioned the phrase going
forward, so that's kind of whatI wanted to ask you about next.
You've been doing this researchfor quite a while . If a
research sponsor gave you ablank check, no restrictions on
the nature of the research,what would you focus on to try
(27:04):
and understand the wholetraffic congestion problem
picture better than you dotoday?
David Schrank (27:11):
Is there a limit on this podcast for how long I
can talk? Because this onecould go on a while, but I
think, again, I , we've talkedabout this. We've been doing
congestion mobility researchfor 30 plus years, and the
message has been congestion'sincreasing and you know, what
(27:32):
are we gonna do about it? Andour message has always been,
well, you're gonna have to usesome of everything to make a
difference, right? Constructionoperations, you know, you name
it, the full gamut. But I thinknow what we're seeing is we're
actually seeing how complextransportation is, and while in
the past we were, let's build aroad, widen a road, let's
(27:54):
operate it better, maybe manageit better. I think now what
we're seeing is it is way morecomplex. There's a lot more
layers to it. And we have toalso look at things besides
just that piece of road and howmany cars or trucks or buses
are on it, meaning that why arethey there? Is there a way that
(28:19):
we can do something differentto get them to either make that
trip at a different time,hybrid work example? Mm-hmm.
maybe they , you know, that bigcompany A is on Tuesday and big
company B is on Wednesday. Soagain, that we are improving
(28:39):
the efficiencies of how we'removing to encourage more
activities that don't requirethat peak trip morning and
evening. How that ties todowntown work areas. You know,
it's, it's very complex. Do youneed all the parking you've
needed in the past? How do youredistribute that parking if
(28:59):
we're only gonna have 80percent of the folks parking
that have been there in thepast or something like that,
how does that relate todowntown businesses? This is a
way more complex conversationthan just how do we move more
people.
Bernie Fette (29:16):
It sounds like rather than just studying the
patterns of traffic congestionitself, you're talking about
understanding or working tounderstand the thought patterns
of the people who areessentially causing it. Again,
am I oversimplifying there oris that part of the approach?
David Schrank (29:35):
I would say that is actually pretty accurate. I
would sum it up by saying a lotof it now is trying to get to
the why's. Yeah . Why are theytraveling then ? And how can we
affect that travel? Is there amore efficient way to handle
that? Whether it's shift thetime, whether it's shift the
(29:55):
mode, whether it's not do it atall, and have it be a telework
hybrid day. We actually canlook at some of those things
now, and data obviously isgetting better for us to do
those kinds of things everyday. There's so many things now
that we'd love to take a lookat to try to, again , pull
apart these trips. The whys,wheres , hows , because we have
(30:18):
data now and we have some newideas since again, those layers
of the onion Yeah . Have beenpulled apart for us.
Bernie Fette (30:24):
Yeah. You're asking questions now that you
weren't asking 10 years ago.
David Schrank (30:29):
Let me say I think that's a good point.
We've always tended to be morereactive to needs, and now
we're reacting still because westill have to provide
transportation for residents,but we're also trying to be
proactive and figure out how wecan maybe get ahead of some of
that travel and make it moreefficient.
Bernie Fette (30:49):
Last question, what is it that motivates you
to get up and come to workevery day?
David Schrank (30:54):
Well, that's a good question. So again, from
somebody who studied congestionfor, you know , 30 plus years,
the last five years has beenfascinating because again, it's
led us kind of look underneaththe hood at what's going on,
and it's created all kinds ofnew questions now that we're
(31:15):
driving, ha ha , no punintended toward the answers.
And hopefully what it's goingto do is make us have a more
efficient transportation systemdown the road for decades to
come.
Bernie Fette (31:28):
David Schrank, senior research scientist at
TTI and expert in all thingstraffic gridlock. This has been
fascinating and enjoyable asusual, Dave. Thank you so much
for sharing your time with us.
David Schrank (31:43):
Thanks for having me, as always.
Bernie Fette (31:47):
For many years, TTI's Urban Mobility Report has
been viewed as the industry'sdefinitive resource on the
causes, conditions, and costsof roadway gridlock.
Transportation planners andpolicy makers alike have relied
upon the UMR to guide billionsin infrastructure investment,
and inform discussions that areaimed at making traffic flow
(32:10):
smoother. It's not enough toknow that traffic is bad and
getting worse. We also need toknow where, when, and why.
Thanks for listening. Pleasetake just a minute to give us a
review, subscribe, and sharethis episode, and please join
us next time for anotherconversation about getting
(32:31):
ourselves and the stuff we needfrom point A to point B.
Thinking Transportation is aproduction of the Texas A&M
Transportation Institute, amember of the Texas A&M
University system. The show isedited and produced by Chris
Pourteau. I'm your writer andhost, Bernie Fette. Thanks
(32:52):
again for joining us. We'll seeyou next time.
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