POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES

CHAPTER TWO

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter discusses local and foreign literatures and studies which the
researchers found relevant to the study. This is a compilation of gathered facts and
information from different sources and references such as books, journals, and articles
from the Internet. This reviews are systematically presented and used the APA style of
writing, which is also called the author-date method of parenthetical documentation,
since this method is convenient and more practical to use.

FOREIGN LITERATURE

According to Rahane and Saharkar (2014), from a study entitled Traffic

Congestion – causes and solutions: a study of Talegaon Dabhade City, there is no
single broadly accepted definition of traffic congestion. One of the principal reasons for
the lack of consensus is that congestion is: a physical phenomenon relating to the
manner in which vehicles impede each other’s progression as demand for limited road
space approaches full capacity.

According to Behrisch, Bieker, Erdmann and Krajzeweiz (2011) from the study on
SUMO - Simulation of Urban Mobility (SUMO), when trying to improve traffic, a valid
model to work with is needed. Although some people may assume traffic can be
described by departure times and routes with certain durations, traffic is highly
conditioned by an individual’s private wish for mobility – making up around 60% of traffic
– and due to this, neither departure times nor fixed and earlier known routes are
available. This is a great problem for modelling traffic itself especially that private transit
leads to an impossibility of describing traffic by the use of mathematical formulas. Both,
a modern human being’s wishes to leave and arrive at certain places and at certain
times on the one hand, and the movement of the vehicle on the street on the other,
influence traffic and one another: the street network’s work load depends on the drivers’
departure times and determines the speed of movement. Vice versa the load affects the
departure times of the drivers’ as they wish to move fast and arrive at a certain time.

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Without traffic surveillance, nothing but fixed time control on intersections can be
implemented. Various plans for different time of day or special events can be designed
and optimized offline (Gazis and Potts, 1963).

FOREIGN STUDY

In the study on Introduction to Simulation (Ingalls, 2008), if simulation is

understood and properly used it can be a powerful tool. Moreover from Ingalls (2008),
as cited by Shannon (1975), “the process of designing a model of real system and
conducting experiments with his model for purpose either of understanding the behavior
of system or of evaluating various strategies (within the limits imposed by a criterion or
set of criteria) for the operation of the system.” This means simulation can be a discrete-
event.

According to Raheen, Olawoore, Olagunju, and Adeokun (2015) on their study

on the Effects and Possible Solution to Traffic Congestion on Nigeria Roads, during the
reign of Roman Empire, roads are important means of transportation, romans use roads
effectively compared to the existing usage of trail whereby ox, man, chariot, camel, and
bull were used as major carrier in road transportation. But when motor vehicle invented,
roads were no longer meant for pedestrians, chariots and animals. This invention called
for improvement of the state of the roads, which led to increase speed and danger to
road users. This the called a proper construction and control of traffic to increase
efficiency of the roads in traffic performance.

Moreover, demand of highway travel increases rapidly as the population grow,

particularly in urban areas. The construction on new highways to accommodate the
growth of travel has not kept the pace. When traffic demand approaches exceed to the
available capacity of the road system, it result to a traffic congestion.

As stated on Traffic Volume study of Nuzhat Nueey Haque, Sachari Halder, Md.
Aminul Islam, Rana Nag, Md. Ridwan Bin Alam, Md. and Mehedi Hassan (2015)
Transportation is key to brighter future, nowadays every country have their own way to

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deal with their needs and to solve the transportation problems within their capabilities. In
building design, we need to calculate the reinforcements through determining the loads
coming from the structure to provide for safe and functioning structures. Here in
transportation volume place the same function. Volume is the main requirement for
planning designing road transportation system. It is simply the volume of vehicle
traveling from one section of a given road or traffic lane per unit of time. Calculating the
volume is great importance for a smoot functioning transportation system.

In a study on Road Traffic Congestion in Developing World (Vipin Jain, Ashley

Sharma, Lakshminarayanan, 2012), “cities throughout the world have found themselves
at the brink of massive traffic explosion, hence curtailing their ability to manage traffic.
The situation has worsened for developing regions due to the following reasons:

Unplanned cities: Roads tend to be narrow and poorly built. As cities grow
in an ad-hoc manner, no provision is made towards scaling road capacities,
eventually resulting into several bottleneck roads, which remain congested for
extended periods of time. Furthermore, many developing countries have
witnessed an explosive growth in their vehicular population resulting in a failure
of conventional traffic management strategies.

Poor discipline: Drivers often are not trained sufficiently to follow lane
discipline. The impact of poor lane discipline, especially at traffic junctions,
deteriorates the already overcrowded junction situation. Furthermore, drivers
frequently jump red light sand block the intersection, causing further traffic
congestion. These problems are compounded by the fact that traffic law
enforcement is poor, thereby providing no incentive for drivers to follow the rules.

Alternate traffic means: Countries with fast growing economies have

witnessed a surge in the number of vehicles across major cities. These cities
seldom have efficient mass transit systems, forcing people cooperate private
vehicles. This problem is compounded by the social stigma, where people view

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operating a private vehicle as a sign of prosperity, while public transport is

viewed as being used by the lower echelons of society.

Archaic management: Traffic junctions are often unmanned, thereby

allowing drivers to drive in a chaotic manner. Even if a junction is controlled by a
cop or a traffic light, the traffic junctions are largely independent of any traffic
management strategy, only optimizing the respective junction traffic flow, in the
direction of maximum traffic build up. Furthermore, these approaches enhances
traffic mismanagement in already congested roads, accelerating congestion
collapse

Tighter budgets: A significant amount of investment is required to set up a

traffic management infrastructure which can scale with the increasing traffic.
Such an infrastructure not only involves measuring and analyzing real-time traffic
data but also focuses towards enhancing congestion detection, solving real time
congestion and forecasting congestion scenarios. In developing countries,
ravaged by corruption and bureaucracy, there are multiple hurdles before the
money actually progresses towards such large initiatives.

In addition, according to Xu, Xi, Li and Zhou from their study, Traffic Signal
Control based on Markov Decision Process (2002), traffic congestion is a stringent issue
in modern society due to increasing population and economic activity, which motivates
the requirement for better utilization of the existing infrastructures and for efficiently
control of the traffic flow. Among all the measures, traffic signal control is a major
component whose enhancement is the most efficient way to reduce the traffic
congestion.

Vehicle-to-Vehicle communications provide the opportunity to create an internet

of cars through the recent advances in communication technologies, processing power,
and sensing technologies. A connected vehicle receives real-time information from
surrounding vehicles; such information can improve drivers’ awareness about their
surrounding traffic condition and lead to safer and more efficient driving maneuvers.

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Lane-changing behavior, as one of the most challenging driving maneuvers to

understand and to predict, and a major source of congestion and collisions, can benefit
from this additional information. (Telebpour, Mahmassani, and Hamdar on Modeling
Lane-Changing Behavior in a Connected Environment: Game Theory Approach, 2015)

LOCAL LITERATURE

As stated by Arnado, Gogo and Abocejo’s paper on Public Utility Jeepney’s

(PUJs) in Cebu City, Central Philippines: Regulations and Implications to Traffic
Congestion (2017), the unprecedented growth of urbanization has rapidly transformed
the economic structure of local markets. The infrastructures are growing bigger and
buildings are sprouting like mushrooms in the metropolitan Cebu. The rising population
needs more support of mass transport, to cope with the demands of people, good and
services mobility. The government and the private sectors provide the means of
transportation like public utility vehicles (PUVs), Taxi and PUJ's.

Moreover, the increased volume of vehicles plying on narrow roads resulted to

the current problems road congestions, uncontrollable increase of PUJs and none
franchise vehicles. These problems arise from the uncontrolled increase of vehicles
where has left to the free market forces, that is the increase volume of road dependent
vehicles are left to the law of supply and demand. The problems of increasing the mass
transport can't be taken for granted. There is an urgent need to understand the
transportation system and how to solve the worsening traffic congestion in urban areas,
dissecting the root cause of these problems to design and implement appropriate public
policies and solutions. The government also acknowledge that the problems cannot be
solved without any reinforcement from the private sectors.

Furthermore, in the Philippines, PUJs are the most accessible means of public
mass transportation bringing Filipino commuters to their destinations at the cheapest
fare. The continuing growth of urban activities brings with it the need to accommodate
the round the clock movement of commuters within metropolis and suburbs. Small

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urban centers, like Cebu city, can hardly cope with the sprawling of local mass transport
brought about by the new era of urbanization. Every day, new registered vehicles are
added to the road which cannot anymore be unexpanded. Along this line, Cebu city
needs to have an implementable legislation to address the burgeoning problem, else it
must come to terms with daily traffic jam and road mess. Any city is designed to be a
vibrant economic community, where people can freely move and access efficient road
transport connecting city zones and its neighboring areas. Today Cebu City is one of
the most progressive and urbanized cities in the country. It is rapidly developing on
technology and economy. Regardless of these excessive developments, there are still
problems that beset the city. Comparing to the other developed cities in Europe, Cebu
City is still suffering from the problems of urbanization intensively the traffic congestion
and notable increase of PUJ’s. The government has to efficiently manage the city traffic
congestion by legislating and implementing responsive ordinances and solutions which
bring about fast road movements for commuters and every facet of economic activity.

LOCAL STUDY

In a study conducted regarding the implementation of traffic impact assessment

in South East Asian cities: case studies of Thailand and the Philippines (2005), in the
Philippines, many cities like Metro Manila are facing the traffic impacts generated from
urban developments, especially for shopping centers or commercial areas. Similar to
Thailand, there exists legislation requiring the conduct of an environmental impact
assessment for different kinds of development, either for environmentally critical
projects or for projects located in environmentally critical areas.

In addition, an early version of this law is the Presidential Decree 1586 (in 1979)
establishing an Environmental Impact Statement System including other environment-
related measures and for other purposes. This law has undergone many
transformations until 1996 (Department Administrative Order; DAO 96-37), which has
strengthened the implementation of the Environmental Impact Statement system.

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However, a comprehensive and meaningful TIA is not yet explicitly included in the
current EIS system. A review of several EIA reports on projects that would have
significant impacts on traffic has shown that only a brief description of the traffic
conditions in the vicinity of the site for development is included (Regidor & Teodoro,
2005).

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