Urban traffic congestion costs billions a year, says new Transport Canada study

OTTAWA — Traffic congestion in Canada’s major urban centres costs Canadians a bare minimum of about $3 billion a year, according to a new study released by Transport Canada.

The study, entitled The Cost of Urban Congestion in Canada, examined the cost of urban traffic congestion for Canada’s nine largest urban areas: Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa-Gatineau, Toronto, Hamilton, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. It reviewed data and “recurrent” situations where congestion occurs daily because demand exceeds the cities’ capacity to move people and goods. It also served to examine costs due to travel delay, additional fuel consumed, and additional greenhouse gases produced.

Recurrent congestion in urban areas costs between $2.3 billion and $3.7 billion per year (in 2002 dollar values), according to the study’s own “conservative” estimates.

More than 90 percent of this cost is related to time lost in traffic to drivers and passengers; seven percent occurs because of fuel consumed; and three percent is from increased greenhouse gas emissions.

Transport Canada admits congestion costs of over $3B are ‘conservative.’

However, the study acknowledges there was insufficient data on the cost associated with non-recurrent congestion such as congestion caused by random events like bad weather, accidents, stalled vehicles, freight transportation, off-peak congestion, and other congestion- related costs, such as noise and stress. Therefore, the costs of congestion, due to a variety of causes, is likely much higher.

“It is especially difficult to draw accurate comparisons among the cities studied, as the data and how it is collected in each city is different. There are structural and methodological differences among their data, such as the definition of expressways and arterials. The study shows consequently, the relative congestion among the major urban centres, while avoiding a simple comparison of the cost of congestion across all nine urban areas,” Transport Canada states.

“Understanding congestion and how to measure it is an important area for future research and collaboration among different levels of government.”

The study — carried out by a team of consultants comprised of Delcan, iTRANS and ADEC on behalf of Transport Canada — provides the first systematic analysis of urban congestion in Canada.”In this respect, it represents a major contribution to our understanding of the issue,” says Transport Canada.

The Feds say measuring congestion and its costs does not automatically imply that the only “solution is for urban authorities to build more roads and highways.” Rather, “this measurement may provide a basis for understanding how congestion can be incorporated explicitly into urban authorities’ assessments of their own transportation plans — whether these involve roads, or whether they are transit, transportation demand management schemes or other alternatives to driving.”

The study says congestion is for the most part tied to growing urban demographics for both people and vehicles. In 2003, around 65 percent of Canada’s population, or about 20 million people, lived in the nation’s 27 census metropolitan areas, up slightly from 61.8 percent in 1993. Recent growth is concentrated in four large urban regions: the extended Golden Horseshoe, Montreal and adjacent region, the Lower Mainland and southern Vancouver Island, and the Calgary-Edmonton corridor.

Motor vehicles in use have also continued to increase faster than the total population; the fleet of cars and trucks combined rose by 13 percent during the past decade up to 2003. Statistics reporting trends for total national vehicle use suggest that total vehicle kilometres grew at least as fast as the vehicle fleet.

To obtain a summary and backgrounder on the study please visit www.tc.gc.ca/programs/Environment/EconomicAnalysis/menu.htm.