35. Research on Time Cost of Urban Congestion in Beijing

During the past 10 years, with the geometric vehicle population growth and subsequent worse road congestion of Beijing, people have got longer travel time and more uncertainty and the speed of vehicles have got evident decrease. As road traffic efficiency drops, the cost of time delay for people increases. People often neglect time cost, but it plays an indispensable role in economics that you can hardly ignore. The externality caused by traffic congestion significantly affects the city’s transportation accessibility and efficiency, ultimately having a negative impact on the sustainable development of society and economy. With the aim to present the externality with the form of currency by quantitative method from the economic point of view, the external costs of congestion are measured by the proposal and accounting of cost of urban congestion based on relatively accurate data. In this thesis, research goals are refined to time cost which is emphasized and analyzed from congestion cost and quantified. Besides, policies and advice for alleviation of road congestion are also provided.