Urban traffic flows have increased dramatically in recent years, causing alarmingly high levels of congestion. A widely held belief is that the construction of new facilities alone will be unable to alleviate this congestion. In this context, motorist information systems based on modern information technology may play an important role in reducing traffic congestion and improving traffic flows and safety. A methodology that is based on a stochastic traffic assignment model is proposed for assessing the effectiveness of motorist information systems in reducing recurrent traffic congestion and for examining the interactions among important parameters of the problem such as level and amount of information provided, percentage of users and access to information, and congestion levels. The methodology is applied to a small suburban network. This paper appears in Transportation Research Record No. 1281, Human Factors and Safety Research Related to Highway Design and Operation 1990.
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