Holiday starts in gridlock for Chinese travelers
When I saw this picture online, I felt amazed that I had never seen this phenomenon on the highway. I would ask, “Was that still a highway?” Look at the distance between the cars; they are so close that the car accident will happen in high probability. Why would it happen in China? It was the first time in a decade that China’s motorways had been toll-free, and many drivers were trying to take advantage of a new policy that waives the toll on expressways during holidays. In some place, while stuck in gridlock Sunday, frustrated drivers were spotted walking their dogs along the hard shoulder, playing tennis, dropping to the tarmac to do push-ups, or simply snoozing in their cars. All of these actions we think are ridiculous as usual. Thousands of cellphone pictures were quickly posted by drivers on the Internet, and the jams were a trending topic on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter. (Malcolm Moore)
Industrial Engineering definitely can do something for the Chinese traffic problem. The main mission of IE is improving the efficiency of production. In this case, the highway has already lost its own efficiency. Let’s use the system engineering perspective, which is one the branches of IE, to analyze the traffic jam. Every system has its own capacity. If the input is over the capacity, the system will blow up. There is a famous theory in system engineering called queue theory, which states that is apparent that the inter arrival time is so small and the service time is very large for a highway, which will result in a larger number of waiting cars in the highway system.
According to the above analysis, we have two methods to figure out the problem. One is extending the highway’s capacity; the other one is decreasing the input. For the former, the government needs to build more highways to increase the capacity. It is not the intelligent way because that the capacity of highway is enough and the performance runs well for non-holidays. If the highway is built, it will be left unused and wasted. The latter one is the best choice for the government. In my personal perspective, based on the different dates, if the car’s last plate number is even, it can enter the highway on even days, but if the car’s last plate is odd, it can enter on odd days. Another way I can think of is that the government posts the limit number of free-entre-in highway electrical two-dimensional code and the driver can download it. When the car enters in the highway, the check in station scans the two-dimensional code and then enters in. One IP allowed downloading only one two-dimensional code and the government post different number of two-dimension code in the different time based on the performance of traffic. The check in station may be very busy, but the performance of highway running should be as fast as usual.
Next time, if the gridlock for Chinese travelers happens again, let’s see which method the engineers who work in transportation will prove to figure out the problem. Actually, this traffic problem is not only happens on holidays, it also occurs on the normal days. The big city, for example, like Shanghai, Hangzhou, the traffic problem is becoming more serious recently than before. Only Transportation Department is not enough anymore to manage the traffic performance alone. Government and corporations in china mostly regard operational management substantial, and ignore the significance of managing techniques with the pith of IE sometimes. I would suggest the Chinese government realize the importance of Industrial Engineering and create more job positions for IE. Industrial engineers can help the transportation to improve the performance of the public traffic. Meantime, it is a good opportunity to prove the significance of IE to the society.
Malcolm Moore.(2012) China’s Massive Holiday Traffic Mess. The Daily Best. Retrieved from http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/02/china-s-massive-holiday-traffic-mess.html
Shan Juan. (2012). Toll-free roads policy sparks debate. China Daily.
