LettersWhy HKeToll and other measures to ease road congestion may well increase it
- Readers discuss the potential impact of the automated toll system on car growth, how to improve road safety on Sai Sha Road, and the future of coal
The reason for this is the phenomenon of induced demand. The introduction of the HKeToll system will increase the capacity of toll roads to handle vehicular traffic flow, since the bottlenecks on each side of the road will now slowly be eliminated.
This reduction in traffic congestion will certainly benefit drivers in the short term. However, in the long run, the decrease in travel time will increase the attractiveness of owning a car and incentivise additional car trips, which would increase traffic volume, and hence traffic congestion.
Therefore, the investment in car infrastructure or systems to reduce traffic jams may actually have the opposite effect. The number of vehicles in the city has increased by around 30,000 in the last five years, and the implementation of the HKeToll system may bump up the number even more.
Instead of investing more in car infrastructure, the government should lean more heavily on improvements to public transport systems. For example, dedicated bus lanes should be constructed or marked to encourage more bus travel.