HighLight Heading
June 2001
Conference opens with ramp meter panel
Marc R. Cutler
Dick Stehr from Mn/DOT, Hennepin County transportation director Jim Grube, and Dave Jennings
The CTS Twelfth Annual Transportation Research Conference kicked off with a brief welcome by Robert Johns, director of CTS, who introduced Assistant Commissioner Jim Swanson of the Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/DOT) for opening remarks. Across Minnesota and the nation, Swanson said, people are "talking transportation." He noted that ramp metering is one of the most frequently discussed issues in the state, and also highlighted recent statistics that rank the Twin Cities metro area as the 15th most congested in America, resulting in an estimated $1.5 billion cost to businesses and individuals. Clearly, Swanson stated, transportation issues must be considered in any discussion of competitive position in today's global economy.
Following Swanson's remarks, a keynote address on "The Politics of Ramp Metering" was delivered by Marc R. Cutler of Cambridge Systematics, Inc., the firm responsible for administering the Twin Cities Ramp Meter Evaluation Study on behalf of Mn/DOT during the recent ramp meter shutoff. Based on the research results, Cutler termed ramp metering "a useful tool," but one that undeniably aroused "strong public feelings."
The ramp meter shutoff period, mandated by the state legislature, presented a unique opportunity to study the effects of a drastic change in traffic management policy in the real world. The results, Cutler said, showed that doing away with metering did not lead to catastrophe, but neither was it a panacea for urban traffic woes.
The history of ramp metering in the Twin Cities is a surprisingly long one, which Cutler traced back to the installation of the first meters in 1969. There were less than a hundred meters until the 1980s, when government policy shifts and tremendous growth in the economy and in metropolitan traffic pushed the number of meters to over four hundred. With continued regional growth throughout the 1990s, meters that may once have solved traffic problems may now have become part of the problem, and public support for metering has declined, he said.
Market research undertaken as part of the ramp metering study revealed that negative effects of ramp metering were predominant in the public's mind; in particular, the time drivers spent waiting behind a ramp meter signal to enter the freeway emerged as a particularly onerous burden.
This observation led to the insight that for many drivers, being delayed in stop-and-go traffic is less objectionable than being delayed at a ramp signal queue, watching traffic flow past. At issue is the drivers' perception of personal control over their vehicle and, by extension, their trip—one of the most powerful attractions of personal vehicles over mass transit.
Another finding of the shutoff research was that ramp meters change the rules of merging with traffic. By and large, drivers who moved to the Twin Cities from meterless metro areas (such as Chicago) were more positive about the traffic conditions during the shutoff, as they muscled their way into unregulated merge zones.
Cutler also related metering anecdotes from other cities that do not enjoy our reputation for "Minnesota Nice"—including one fast-growing southern metropolis where residents took to shooting out the signal lights before proceeding into the flow of traffic.
In the final analysis, the results of the metering study indicate it may be time to reevaluate Minnesota's long-held goal of maintaining a smooth flow of traffic on the freeway at all costs, Cutler said. In particular, the length of ramp queues and the resultant wait times for motorists might be incorporated into a future, improved ramp metering scheme. Metro area ramp meters are currently operating on an interim system, and a second round of intense study will aim to identify specific ways to improve ramp metering for the benefit of all Minnesota drivers. (See the CTS web site for coverage of a concurrent session on ramp metering and for additional information about University ramp meter research.)
Conference attendees were then invited to participate in a panel discussion of the keynote topic with Dick Stehr from Mn/DOT, Hennepin County transportation director Jim Grube, and Dave Jennings of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce (pictured to right).
Stehr noted that the study was particularly valuable in discovering idiosyncrasies of the ramp metering system as a whole, and said the current interim metering system represents a move away from a traffic management policy based solely on "technical" considerations. In his view, balancing freeway speed and ramp wait is only one aspect of managing congestion.
Jennings agreed that ramp metering is just one part of complex transportation issues today, but said the issue is a lightning rod because it represents an experience common to all users of the transportation system. The current debate over ramp meters, he said, has changed the tone of debate over all transportation issues in Minnesota.
Grube offered a technical perspective on the ramp metering experiment, and confirmed that the shutoff and subsequent research represented a unique and valuable opportunity to learn about the effects of ramp metering.