Costs of Congestion: Literature Based Review of Methodologies and Analytical Approaches

Road congestion is seen as having increasing impacts on travellers, the environment and economy as a whole, but there is little evidence on what the full costs of congestion are. This research has involved an international literature review on the costs of road traffic congestion. Firstly, congestion in Scotland was summarised based upon analysis of the Scottish Household Survey data. Congestion is widely understood but rarely defined, so a summary was made of different definitions of congestion and how it has been measured. The main focus was to report on the different methods used to measure the costs of congestion. Finally an outline was given on the link between economic growth and congestion (‘decoupling’).