ABSTRACT
With the fast-growing economy and population, transportation has become a crucial
component of modern life in Egypt. Sales of road vehicles have been growing at a
tremendous speed over the last few years. On the other hand, the growth of
infrastructure is however much slower than that of vehicles. This has led to severe
congestion problems in the city of Cairo evidenced by very low average vehicle
speeds and high percentages of driving time in idling, acceleration and deceleration.
Traffic congestion has a direct impact on quality of life in most of countries.
Congestion deals with much more than just the cost of burning fuel, wasting time and
car maintenance but it affects drivers attitude, health and work performance. It is
also leading to more crashes, and air pollution. Congestion is ultimately resulting in a
less productive economy and reduced quality of life for many people. Of course there
are solutions which could reduce the effect of congestions on the people's life and
the country economy in Egypt.
In the present paper facts about the cost of congestions in one of the many
congestion spots around Cairo are presented. In the present case study the
congestion is resulted from adopting one of the traffic designs in an improper place
(U-turn concept). Fuel consumption, wasted time, traveled distance, are some
examples of the estimated parameters due to the congestion in 9 U-Turns which
were chosen in one of the main streets in Cairo.