Distilling actionable insights through road network features to alleviate traffic congestion

Distilling actionable insights through road network features to alleviate traffic congestion | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Distilling actionable insights through road network features to alleviate traffic congestion Nishant Kumar, Yatao Zhang, Nina Wiedemann, Jimi Oke, Martin Raubal This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-4952650/v2 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 2 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Show more versions Abstract Policy transfer is an efficient strategy for urban policymaking. However, the unique city-specific characteristics complicate the transfer of congestion-mitigating policies. We study seven highly congested cities worldwide and argue that, since regions with less congestion exist even within these cities, understanding how road network features explain the intra-city variations in con- gestion can significantly enhance the efficacy of mitigation measures. While our findings reveal extreme city-specific variations in feature importance, suggesting that supply-side interventions must be tailored to individual cities, the most effective features for demand-side interventions share notable similarities across different cities. In the short term, our results directly impact the ongoing mitigation measures in these cities, such as congestion pricing and personalised route choice applications, specifically in making them more robust and increasing public acceptance. In the long term, our insights encourage a re-evaluation of scepticism towards infrastructure invest- ments in mitigating congestion and highlight the potential for designing congestion-resistant future cities. Moreover, given the diverse selection of cities, the few common observations suggest that extrapolating those common observations to new cities will likely be effective, especially when a detailed analysis like ours is impossible due to data constraints. Finally, we provide key recommendations for researchers from the data-driven traffic prediction community regarding the need to focus on microscopic scales and for researchers in simulation-based counterfactual approaches to simulate the impact of road network features with values beyond the known ranges for feature values in the studied cities. Physical sciences/Engineering/Civil engineering Physical sciences/Energy science and technology/Energy infrastructure spatial transferable policy congestion recurrent non-recurrent Full Text Additional Declarations The authors declare no competing interests. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 2 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Show more versions Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-4952650","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":463498697,"identity":"6c9da013-289d-40b9-97f7-5bbc3646e90c","order_by":0,"name":"Nishant Kumar","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAAuUlEQVRIiWNgGAWjYDACZiAEAX4GBjYQnUC8FskGZmK1MEC1GBwgVos5O/tjY94cu3zj4/3HHv5gsMsjqMWymcc4mXdbsuW2M4fZDSQYkosJajE4zMN8mHcbs4HZjWQ2CQOGA4kNhLWwPwZqqTcwnv+YTSKBOC0MIIcdNjCQYGaTOECcFh5jw7nbjhtInEk2k2wwSCZCy/njjyXebqs24G8/+EzyR4UdYS3oJpCofhSMglEwCkYBdgAARVg1wWmHmaQAAAAASUVORK5CYII=","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9904-895X","institution":"ETH Zurich","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Nishant","middleName":"","lastName":"Kumar","suffix":""},{"id":463498698,"identity":"3344b65b-a7b0-4691-809c-5146baf212ad","order_by":1,"name":"Yatao Zhang","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"ETH Zurich","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Yatao","middleName":"","lastName":"Zhang","suffix":""},{"id":463498699,"identity":"0a400e56-1ff9-448b-9df4-cae71d470df6","order_by":2,"name":"Nina Wiedemann","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"ETH Zurich","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Nina","middleName":"","lastName":"Wiedemann","suffix":""},{"id":463498700,"identity":"19147705-10b5-4dd2-b03f-28937df76191","order_by":3,"name":"Jimi Oke","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"University of Massachusetts Amherst","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Jimi","middleName":"","lastName":"Oke","suffix":""},{"id":463498701,"identity":"4b9aa0de-e927-4006-9c9a-fe3b4ae6d661","order_by":4,"name":"Martin Raubal","email":"","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5951-6835","institution":"Institute of Cartography and Geoinformation, ETH Zurich","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Martin","middleName":"","lastName":"Raubal","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2024-08-21 15:21:27","currentVersionCode":2,"declarations":{"humanSubjects":false,"vertebrateSubjects":false,"conflictsOfInterestStatement":false,"humanSubjectEthicalGuidelines":false,"humanSubjectConsent":false,"humanSubjectClinicalTrial":false,"humanSubjectCaseReport":false,"vertebrateSubjectEthicalGuidelines":false},"doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4952650/v2","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4952650/v2","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":84011214,"identity":"a7ece140-3b06-42a4-a487-917edc59d0f5","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-06-05 16:30:41","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":20130377,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"NatureCitiesUnderReviewversion.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-4952650/v2_covered_6cf133b4-34cc-4f9b-a726-16b573e95dc1.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"The authors declare no competing interests.","formattedTitle":"\u003cp\u003eDistilling actionable insights through road network features to alleviate traffic congestion\u003c/p\u003e","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":true,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"spatial, transferable, policy, congestion, recurrent, non-recurrent","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4952650/v2","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4952650/v2","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003ePolicy transfer is an efficient strategy for urban policymaking. However, the unique city-specific\u003cbr\u003e\ncharacteristics complicate the transfer of congestion-mitigating policies. We study seven highly\u003cbr\u003e\ncongested cities worldwide and argue that, since regions with less congestion exist even within\u003cbr\u003e\nthese cities, understanding how road network features explain the intra-city variations in con-\u003cbr\u003e\ngestion can significantly enhance the efficacy of mitigation measures. While our findings reveal\u003cbr\u003e\nextreme city-specific variations in feature importance, suggesting that supply-side interventions\u003cbr\u003e\nmust be tailored to individual cities, the most effective features for demand-side interventions\u003cbr\u003e\nshare notable similarities across different cities. In the short term, our results directly impact the\u003cbr\u003e\nongoing mitigation measures in these cities, such as congestion pricing and personalised route\u003cbr\u003e\nchoice applications, specifically in making them more robust and increasing public acceptance. In\u003cbr\u003e\nthe long term, our insights encourage a re-evaluation of scepticism towards infrastructure invest-\u003cbr\u003e\nments in mitigating congestion and highlight the potential for designing congestion-resistant\u003cbr\u003e\nfuture cities. Moreover, given the diverse selection of cities, the few common observations suggest\u003cbr\u003e\nthat extrapolating those common observations to new cities will likely be effective, especially\u003cbr\u003e\nwhen a detailed analysis like ours is impossible due to data constraints. Finally, we provide key\u003cbr\u003e\nrecommendations for researchers from the data-driven traffic prediction community regarding\u003cbr\u003e\nthe need to focus on microscopic scales and for researchers in simulation-based counterfactual\u003cbr\u003e\napproaches to simulate the impact of road network features with values beyond the known\u003cbr\u003e\nranges for feature values in the studied cities.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Distilling actionable insights through road network features to alleviate traffic congestion","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":2,"date":"2025-06-05 16:14:21","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4952650/v2","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}},{"code":1,"date":"2025-05-29 08:12:06","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4952650/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"7e621704-04d0-4136-960a-f442610be223","owner":[],"postedDate":"June 5th, 2025","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[{"id":49598841,"name":"Physical sciences/Engineering/Civil engineering"},{"id":49598842,"name":"Physical sciences/Energy science and technology/Energy infrastructure"}],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2025-05-29T08:12:06+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2025-06-05 16:14:21","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v2","identity":"rs-4952650","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-4952650","identity":"rs-4952650","version":["v2"]},"buildId":"8U1c8b4HqxoKbykW_rLl7","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}