Improving the Estimation Method of Traffic Congestion Costs

Recently, there has been increasing demand from academic society in Korea for the improvement of current traffic congestion cost estimation methods. The purpose of this study is to suggest a better way to estimate congestion cost followed by in-depth review regarding traffic congestion. The key improvements proposed in this study include: 1) adding social externality to congestion cost, 2) integrating the green house and environmental pollution impacts with congestion costs, 3) taking non-recurrent traffic congestion costs into account for the assessment, 4) revising the criteria to determining the level of traffic congestion speed, and 5) deciding how to limit congestion measurement period. It is found meaningful that the improvements, notwithstanding difficulties in their real case application, provide invaluable insights in our efforts to change the meaning of congestion cost in an era of sustainable growth.