From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov

Transcript for: Use of Technology to Manage Traffic Congestion

Audio interview by GAO staff with David Wise, Director, Physical
Infrastructure

Related GAO Work: GAO-12-308: Intelligent Transportation Systems:
Improved DOT Collaboration and Communication Could Enhance Use of
Technology to Manage Congestion

Released: April 2012

[ Background Music ]

 [ Narrator: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news
and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. It's
April 2012. Traffic congestion is a growing problem that burdens
commuters, communities, and the environment, and decreases the nation's
quality of life. A group led by David Wise, a director in GAO's Physical
Infrastructure team, recently reviewed efforts to support the use of
technologies that can help reduce traffic congestion. GAO's Jeremy
Cluchey sat down with David to learn more.

[ Jeremy Cluchey: ] Let's start with the problem of traffic congestion. 
Why is this something that governments at every level are trying to
address right now?

[ David Wise: ] Well Jeremy, let me tell you, traffic congestion is an
issue that all governments are facing. It's something that commuters
face on a day-to-day basis. It certainly costs us economically. I think
the DOT—the Department of Transportation—has estimated it's costing us
up to $200 billion a year in time wasted, fuel, and of course with
gasoline costing $4 a gallon, nobody wants to sit in traffic any more
than he or she has to. I'd say probably, I think we found in our report
that drivers are spending up to or even more than a quarter of their
overall time in traffic, and I think if you live around the Washington,
D.C., area, it's probably more.

[ Jeremy Cluchey: ] In this report, you look at Intelligent
Transportation Systems, or ITS, technologies. How do these ITS systems
help governments address the problems of traffic congestion?

[ David Wise: ] Well in a number of ways. I think we pointed out in our
report that one of the key ways is that it provides travelers with
alternative routes in case there's a traffic incident. Another way is
trying to manage traffic flow, and that happens in a couple of different
ways. One is the managing of traffic signals in a long distance manner.
For example, you'll see sometimes traffic signals that will be sequenced
to adjust to traffic at certain times, and that can be handled either
centrally or it can be handled through some other kinds of electronic
means.

[ Jeremy Cluchey: ] Your team looked in particular at the sorts of
challenges that state and local governments face in trying to implement
ITS technologies. What did you find there?

[ David Wise: ] Some governments, especially at the state and regional
and local level, will view ITS as maybe a nice to have, but not
necessarily completely essential. So in a challenging budget environment
if something's going to get cut, it's probably easier to cut ITS because
if the choice is between ITS technology implementation or filling pot
holes, obviously a local government is going to be under pressure to
fill pot holes. Another key problem, another key challenge I should say,
we found was that retention of trained personnel is an issue. Having
continuity of expertise in the ITS—which is, as you can imagine, a very
rapidly changing field—becomes a real challenge then.

[ Jeremy Cluchey: ] At the federal level, what is the Department of
Transportation doing to try and support these efforts?

[ David Wise: ] Well basically our report looked at two elements of the
Department of Transportation. One is the Research Innovative Technology
Administration, called RITA for short, and the other is the Federal
Highway Administration, which also promotes strategies for improving
traffic operations and many of these do involve ITS technologies. Both
of them I'd say respond in a couple of different ways: they do webinars
and they maintain websites, which they are charged with updating and
keeping current, and they sponsor training as well.

[ Jeremy Cluchey: ] Can you talk about some of the recommendations that
GAO's making in this report?

[ David Wise: ] We suggested in our recommendations to the head of the
Department of Transportation that there were three things they needed to
do. One was clearly define and document the respective roles and
responsibilities of RITA and the FHWA to promote and support the use of
ITS. We also suggested in our recommendation that they revise the ITS
information on RITA and FHWA websites to improve their usefulness and
user friendliness, and which will help the state and local audiences
better make use of this technology. And the third thing is we took a
look at suggesting to include RITA's strategy for promoting the adoption
of ITS technology plans for collaborating with external partners, and
that would help further enhance communication about the availability of
ITS resources, as well as facilitate the learning exchanges between all
the different parties. We're hopeful that with further adoption of ITS
technologies that this will help manage the flow of traffic, improve
commercial development, and generally make a difference in people's
lives as they try to get about their business and get to work or get
home or do their shopping or whatever they need to do, and as well as,
help reduce some of the negative impact on the economy that congestion
does entail.

[ Background Music ]

[ Narrator: ] To learn more, visit gao.gov and be sure to tune in to the
next episode of GAO's Watchdog Report for more from the congressional
watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office.