Congestion Management

Details: Last Updated: 12 March 2024

What is the Congestion Management Process?

Each day, the 853 thousand residents of the Capital Region make 3.2 million trips by auto, transit, walking, or biking, totaling more than 21 million miles of daily travel. Travelling isn’t always smooth – in 2022, traffic congestion added an additional 16.5 million hours of travel time. This congestion results in wasted fuel, wasted time, harmful vehicle emissions, and increased supply chain costs.

The Congestion Management Process (CMP) is a systematic approach to managing congestion using accurate and up-to-date transportation system performance data to identify congestion problems and implement congestion management strategies. A successful CMP offers many benefits to the travelling public by making the regional transportation system safer, greener, more efficient, and improving quality of life for all travelers.

In the 2023 Congestion Management Process Report, the methodology and initial findings of the CMP are presented. The report includes:

Multimodal congestion performance measures and baseline values for these measures.
Summary of extensive stakeholder and public engagement.
Analysis of congestion problems in each county.
List of congestion management strategies, covering eight categories of approaches to congestion management. Many of these strategies focus on leveraging cost-effective technologies to get the most performance we can out of the region’s transportation infrastructure.
Policies and procedures relating to integrating CMP findings into the Transportation Council’s upcoming long-range Metropolitan Transportation Plan update and Transportation Improvement Plan update, including identification of potential funding sources and capital programming approaches for CMP implementation.
Next steps that will be performed as part of the cyclical and ongoing CMP process.

View the full document here: Congestion Management Process Report

What are the Causes of Congestion?

Congestion is also characterized as either recurring (congestion that occurs at a predictable time of day or day of the week, such as the evening rush hour), or non-recurring (congestion that is unpredictable and results from a temporary disruption such as a crash, a work zone, or inclement weather).

Understanding the causes contributing to congestion on each roadway facility, and whether the congestion is recurring or non-recurring, is crucial in selecting effective congestion management strategies.

What are the Costs of Congestion?

Where Does Congestion Occur?

View the online map of traffic congestion data.

The region’s congestion problems and needs have been aggregated from the following five sources:

View the full analysis of congestion needs here: Congestion Problems and Needs

What Strategies Can be Used to Treat Congestion?

There are eight categories of congestion management strategies:

View the full list of strategies here: Congestion Management Strategies

What's Next?

The Congestion Management Process will be maintained as an ongoing transportation planning process. Outcomes of the CMP will be integrated into the Transportation Council’s upcoming long-range plan update and funding programs. The CMP will help connect areas of congestion need with funding to implement cost-effective strategies. Data refreshes and other ongoing work will be performed to ensure that the Transportation Council maintains an up-to-date understanding of mobility needs in the region.

Details: Last Updated: 15 August 2023

The Capital Region Transportation Management Center is a traffic monitoring and response center operated by the New York State Department of Transportation in partnership with the New York State Police. The TMC is located at the New York State Police Troop G headquarters in Latham, NY and has been in continuous operation since December, 1998. Partnering with the State Police has enhanced situation awareness of regional traffic issues and decreased incident response time. The TMC is a focal point for regional traffic incident management, utilizing traffic cameras and road sensors, and it is the originator of NYSDOT regional 511 video and message feeds. The TMC enables State Troopers, DOT HELP Trucks, and other emergency personnel to respond swiftly to crash scenes and other highway problems. When it is appropriate, DOT maintenance crews are dispatched to help restore traffic flow quickly. Since the establishment of the TMC, traffic flow has improved for all Capital Region highway users. The TMC also coordinates with the Thruway Operations Center (TSOC), CDTA, and plans for traffic management during construction and special events.

The Transportation Council has provided strong support for the TMC and its mission. The Transportation Council has consistently provided funding through the Transportation Improvement Program (TIP). The 2016-2021 Transportation Council TIP provides $2.0 million per year for the TMC, including support for the HELP program. The Transportation Council New Visions Plan identifies the TMC as a vital component of congestion management and traffic reliability for the Capital District. Non-recurrent delay represents the worst congestion Capital Region drivers encounter, and TMC incident management and operations efforts are the most effective ways to reduce non-recurrent delay in the Capital District. Commercial vehicles rely on TMC and 511 data. The TMC is also a critical resource for responding to emergencies such as Hurricane Irene and Hurricane Sandy. By managing traffic flows, the TMC makes a vital contribution to the attractiveness and economic vitality of the Capital District.

Local Road Safety Action Plan

Travel Information at 511NY

NYS Police Traffic Management

The Capital Region Transportation Management Center

Details: Last Updated: 05 March 2024

The Transportation Council's Regional Operations and Safety Advisory Committee (ROSAC) provides a forum for professionals from federal and state transportation agencies, transit agencies, local municipalities, and law enforcement agencies to coordinate various transportation system management and safety activities in the Capital Region. Discussions are expected to mesh day-to-day transportation system operations with the long and short term planning process. In addition, ROSAC will focus on safety and security planning.

Ongoing Activities

Vision Zero Action Plan

Over the course of 2024 and into 2025, the Transportation Council will be working on a regional Vision Zero Action Plan that will focus on a reduction of fatal and serious injury crashes to an eventual goal of zero, and include all public roadways, additional public input focused on underserved communities, systemic safety analysis, area speed limit recommendations, and a prioritized listing of actionable projects that includes infrastructure projects eligible for Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) funding in New York State. The project is funded by the Federal Highway Administration as well as the Cities of Albany, Saratoga Springs, Troy, and Watervliet as well as the Village of Green Island and New York State Department of Transportation.

Congestion Management Process

The Capital Region Congestion Management Process (CMP) methodology report was adopted by the Transportation Council's Policy Board in December 2023. The report outlines a process to identify congested locations and the appropriate strategies to treat them. The report makes recommendations relating to Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), roadway operations, transit, access management, land use, bicycle & pedestrian mobility, and more. For more information, please visit the Congestion Management Process webpage.