Externality analysis on intersection congestion and relieving countermeasures: An empirical study on Beijing, China

As part of the urban transportation, intersections belong to quasi-public goods. Individual vehicles will not affect others on the same intersection when traffic is smooth. But once the traffic flow exceeds the critical point, intersections´ non-competitive character will disappear and exclusionary becomes conspicuous, showing all levels of traffic jams. This article first combines the transportation evaluation methods with basic models of external integration to analyze the causes of congestion. Then it takes 15 intersections of Beijing, China as samples, and introduces quantitative indicators of service level to the external analysis model, which helps to determine the threshold of the normal average delay time. Finally, measures to relief congestion are also proposed.