Finger-tapping, sighing, honking, braking every second and risking one’s life by speeding carelessly when opportunity strikes is one of the many symptoms when you are stuck in traffic congestion. This restlessness is the reality of what Malaysians had to go through in their daily life especially those who are living in the concrete urban jungle like Kuala Lumpur, Johor Bahru, Penang, Kota Kinabalu, Kuching, Ipoh, Shah Alam, Klang and other busy cities. In this 21st century, traffic congestion has become global issue in many developing nations in the world and it negatively affect the people and the country itself especially it terms of efficiency and productivity. In addition, traffic congestion also badly contributes to air pollution as well due to the large emission of carbon monoxide from every vehicle in the city. As matter of fact, carbon dioxide emission can cause air pollutions especially when people stuck in traffic jams (Dias et al., 2017; Das et al., 2013; Shamsuddin et al., 2014). Hence, there are arguments on whether people should relocate themselves to the suburbs or countryside to overcome the issue of traffic congestion. However, migrating people to the suburbs or countryside would be counterproductive because these people will still travel in and out of a city and consequently it will lead to heavy flow of traffic primarily during the rush hour period. Therefore, to overcome traffic congestion in the city, government and the people must be able to work hand in hand to solve this issue. The importance of minimizing traffic congestion would be beneficial socially and economically to Malaysia.
There are many reasons for traffic jams to occur in Malaysia such increasing the number of vehicles every year, overpopulation in urban areas, increasing the number of poor traffic signal systems in certain areas, no systematic public transportations, obsolete technology, and narrow roads (Chu & Nguyen, 2017). Malaysians are refusing to use public transportation as poor customer service by Keretapi Tanah Melayu (KTM), Light Rail Transit (LRT), public transportations, poor safety and security (Brohi, 2018; Suria, 2012; Soh, Wong, Chong & Hiew, 2014), lanes are close due to utility work, roads are narrowing down, as well as accidents (Mandlik,2020). It is should be noted that the Public Transport System (PTS) in Malaysia is not advanced like other countries (Brohi, 2018). Therefore, one of the way to tackle traffic congestion is to enhance the effectiveness of public transportation. Such as the on-going program that the government had implemented is the Government Transformation Programme (GTP) 2.0 where all public transportations will be fully utilized and optimized including Keretapi Tanah Melayu (KTM) , Light Rail Transit (LRT), and other public transportations (Brohi, 2018). This program will be beneficial for the public to commute in many places around the city and will be available for them at convenient time. For the government to encourage the public in fully utilizing public transportation as much as possible, government can introduce public transportation monthly pass and special discounted rate pass for group of students, the elderly and the disable. As example the MY30 monthly RapidKL pass that gives unlimited ride to public Rapidkl buses and all subway train like MRT, LRT, KTM and Monorail (Bernama, 2020). Another example is free public bus ride like it was implemented in Penang, Shah Alam and Kuala Lumpur. Thus, it is crucial for a public transportation to be reliable especially in punctuality at the very least. This is important especially to the working class since they need to clock in at their workplace before their schedule begin. Other than that, the use of taxis and another e-hailing vehicle should also be utilize fully by introducing attractive and affordable price range for public. Many people prefer to drive their own private vehicle is because the lack of quality service in public transportation, therefore there is an urge to upgrade the quality of our public transportation so more public would resort to public transportation and eventually this will help to mitigate traffic congestion.
Furthermore, the side effect of traffic congestion can also lead to road rage incidents. According to the news published by the Star 2019, a result of a five-year-study undertaken by the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (Miros) between 2009 and 2012 showed that 18% of the 13.3 million registered drivers in Malaysia would come under the category of high-anger drivers. In the report, Miros research fellow and psychologist Karen Goonting said this meant that there were 2.4 million extremely angry drivers on the roads, adding that these high anger drivers were more likely to lose control of their vehicles, suffer a loss of concentration and display verbal, physical or vehicular aggression on the road. High-anger drivers are defined as those who get angry about 642 times over an average of 300 driving days a year. The study also found that Malaysian drivers were three to four times angrier than drivers in the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Spain and Turkey. Another study shows the correlation between road rage and traffic congestion, stated prolonged or repeated exposure to stressful situations has been linked with heightened aggression (Cohen, 1980; Gibson and Wiesenthal, 1996). Thus, this study informed us traffic congestion is bad as it can lead to road rage and road rage sometimes lead to more traffic congestion because of other drivers would normally slow down their vehicle to observe what is happening. The worst that could happen is when authority like policeman, medical unit and city council must come down and close the road due to terrible road rage incidents. Studies have proven that divers who practice ideal driving behaviour reduce road risks, cut fuel use, mitigate pollutants, improve traffic congestion, and prevent road rage (New Straits Times, 2020). Furthermore, traffic congestion can be tackled by enhancing road infrastructures, and improving urban planning and design. As example, widening road lanes to accommodate more vehicles to get through rather than suffering from bottleneck road situation and only causes other vehicles to converge through the narrow road every day. Another example to improve road infrastructure is creating more accessible routes for example, flyovers and smart tunnels. These routes will be well connected with other routes for road users to manage in getting to their destination as efficient as possible. As for urban planning and design, a designated lane for public transportation like taxis, buses, motorcyclist, and cyclist should be implemented in cities that has trouble with traffic congestion. The rationale behind this is to reduce traffic congestion and smoothen the flow of traffic by having this exclusive lane to only be use by selected transportation. Additionally, improving urban planning and design such as having more car parks will also help to cut down traffic congestion. This is because, road users that are travelling in a city normally will be having trouble in finding car park that is convenient. Consequently, road users will be roaming around the city blocks to look for a parking and even double park irresponsibly when they are tired to look for a decent parking. Thus, city council and government can allocate more parking spaces for road users to park their vehicles in more accessible and convenient places. With this implementation, road users will have less time on the road, and the less vehicles on the road, the lesser traffic congestion in a city.
The complication with traffic congestion is, road users cannot avoid the inevitable hassle. Especially when the situation involves highly populated and modern city. Traffic congestion is part and parcel of developing nations and its cities where the transaction of demand and supply constantly flowing within and inside big cities. This can be seen like in New York, Beijing, Jakarta, Beijing, Bangkok and so on. Hence, even traffic congestion cannot be avoided, at the very least we can reduce the problem by anticipating the occurrence and pattern of heavy traffic on the road. By anticipating the incoming traffic congestion, we can understand the flow of traffic methodically and find a way to manage the incoming heavy flow of traffic efficiently. The solution to combat traffic congestion is utilizing the use of technology to monitor the flow of traffic, anticipate traffic jammed, and regulate the traffic accordingly by re-routing the road network, and informing authorities and road users of the approaching traffic. As example the use of technology is optimizing traffic signal timing by extending or delaying the traffic control (Tan et. al., 2016) and this can be implemented by traffic pre-timed control as well as historical traffic adaptive control (Araghi, Khosravi, & Creighton, 2015). Another real-life precedent to reduce traffic congestion is using Artificial Intelligence (A.I) by deploying Smart Traffic Analytics & Recognition System (STARS). STARS has the solution consist of traffic-lights that respond to real-time data collected by traffic cameras and sensors. Likewise, STARS leverages the internet of things (IoT) and edge computing in the cameras and sensors to transmit data to the cloud, which then runs complex yet intelligent simulations to control the traffic lights — creating a closed-loop, end-to-end managed IoT system. Besides, STARS has been tested in parts of the country since 2016, and recently, in a case study published by GSMA, claims to have proved its effectiveness to the government by reducing traffic waiting time along Persiaran Multimedia (a main road in Cyberjaya — a town in Malaysia) by more than 65 percent. At peak hours, it would take approximately 32 minutes to drive from one end of Persiaran Multimedia to the other, but it now takes between eight and 11 minutes (TechwireAsia, 2019). The solution obviously delights drivers who are able to get from one point to another more quickly and helps local councils a great deal because it not only boosts satisfaction among the public but also helps meet sustainability goals by reducing traffic congestion-related emissions. Further, regulators and municipal organizations facilitating the implementation benefit from a reduction in overall operational costs, and support for future traffic optimization and town planning projects. First launched in 2016, the solution from Telekom Malaysia is now monitoring more than 130 junctions across four municipalities in Cyberjaya (Cyberview), Kelantan (Jabatan Kerja Raya Kelantan), Pengerang (Johor Corporation) and Penang (Majlis Perbandaran Seberang Perai). The company believes the solution could ultimately be deployed to approximately 1,800 junctions nationwide across Malaysia. Telekom Malaysia also told GSMA that despite the success in its first round, the company will explore how it can leverage predictive analytics in the future to factor in weather, events and holidays, and up to six months of historical data, to better predict routes that help avoid traffic congestion. Therefore, with this SMART system utilize it can assist in analysing the flow of traffic and find ways to redirect the traffic to lesser congested route and warn other road users about the traffic congestion. The gathered analysed data can be advantageous for mapping out and pre-plan to build better road infrastructures, urban planning and urban design that aimed to mitigate traffic congestion.
Traffic congestion does not only cause delay, frustration to road users and decreasing productivity, but also affected the quality of air. This happened due to constant and long hours of vehicles releasing dangerous gas chemical like carbon monoxide. When the air is polluted due to this chemical, it will be harmful to breath for people that is living in the city. Therefore, the increasing number of vehicles will cause traffic congestions and air pollution where Malaysia has categorized as the second biggest contributor per capital Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emitter among the ASEAN nations (Saxena, 2009) or significantly 0.3% of worldwide GHG emission (Olivier, Peters, & Janssens-Maenhout, 2012). Hence, to cut down on traffic congestion and air pollution, an initiative of Car Free Day should be introduced. This policy function by banning vehicles to enter the city within certain period of time. The cities that practice Car Free Day is Dublin of Ireland, Paris of France, Vesprem of Hungary, Denpasara, Surabaya and Jakarta of Indonesia (M.Farda & C.Baljepali, 2018). Moreover, Malaysia also started to practice this Car Free Day event in Shah Alam where on every second Sunday of the week no vehicle is allowed to enter Shah Alam from 6am to 9am within the selected scope of car-free zone. This is to curb traffic congestion and promote people taking alternatives mode of transportation like bicycle (The Star, 2017). The question arise how will this policy help minimize traffic congestion and lessen air pollution? According to Greenpeace report, when Paris’ city centre went car-free in 2015, levels of nitrogen dioxide dropped by up to 40% in parts of the city, and sound levels dropped by half in the city centre (The Guardian 2015). Consequently, Car Free Day policy can help to reduce traffic congestion, fight off air pollution and even noise pollution. Less vehicles on the road would be lesser heavy traffic and lesser emission of carbon monoxide. Thus, this will lead to less stressful driving experience and healthier air to breath. Plus, the Car Free Day policy will also inspire people to resort to cycling and walking which is indirectly lead ti more active lifestyle and healthier society. This impact can be worthwhile for Malaysia because of like killing two birds with one stone whereby lesser congestion and healthy society.
To summarize, the debate on whether people should move to suburbs or countryside to avoid traffic congestion is not practical in the long run. Alternatively, it is better to tackle the issue of traffic congestion systematically and holistically to improve the nation in terms of economically and socially, which is first by enhancing public transportation so it can be good choice for road users or people living in the city to beat heavy traffic. Secondly, government must allocate plan and budget to upgrade road infrastructures, urban planning and design to be more convenient and practical for road users and people living in the city. Thirdly, government can fully implement SMART technology that can assist the flow of traffic and provide real time route management. Lastly, applying Car Free Day policy to most affected area that is prone and susceptible to traffic congestion. [2933 words]
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