Skip to main content

San Francisco launches congestion management strategy

San Francisco mayor Edwin M. Lee has launched the city’s congestion management strategy to improve traffic flow and safety, especially in the South of Market neighbourhood where construction and growth remain the highest in the City. The strategy outlines additional efforts the city could undertake, beyond traditional approaches such as the Interdepartmental Staff Committee on Traffic and Transportation (ISCOTT). These additional efforts include smarter traffic enforcement, better construction permitt
December 11, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
San Francisco mayor Edwin M. Lee has launched the city’s congestion management strategy to improve traffic flow and safety, especially in the South of Market neighbourhood where construction and growth remain the highest in the City. 

The strategy outlines additional efforts the city could undertake, beyond traditional approaches such as the Interdepartmental Staff Committee on Traffic and Transportation (ISCOTT). These additional efforts include smarter traffic enforcement, better construction permitting, and coordinated efforts through the City’s new traffic management centre (TMC).

4802 San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) and San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) will coordinate rush hour traffic enforcement and traffic management.

Parking control officers will also focus on preventing gridlock by enforcing ‘blocking the box’ violations, a strategy that proved successful in a summer 2014 pilot.

Over the next two years, additional efforts will focus on data and technology, planning and enforcement. SFMTA will assemble currently available real-time data from traffic cameras and public information cutting-edge public data feeds to establish a monitoring function in its new TMC. By the end of next year, SFMTA will connect the city’s traffic signals to the TMC to allow engineers to diagnose signal problems in real time, fix signals quickly, and manage traffic peaks during rush hours and special events. SFMTA will use its real-time Twitter feed to provide and receive traffic information.

“San Francisco is experiencing unprecedented growth, and as a result, we are seeing increased demand on our streets,” said Mayor Lee. “These new focused measures to combat congestion can help make Muni, taxis, shuttles, bikes, and cars move through the City more smoothly and predictably, and can make the streets safer for everyone, particularly pedestrians. This new strategy will get us to our Vision Zero goal of ending pedestrian fatalities.”

“Smart, data-driven, targeted efforts to reduce congestion in San Francisco can make it easier and smoother for people to get around the City,” said SFMTA Director of Transportation Ed Reiskin. “These efforts will also help us make Muni more reliable and help us reach our long-term goals – to achieve Vision Zero, and to make transit, bicycling, car share, taxi and walking great ways to get around San Francisco.”

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • GridMatrix maximises power of existing infrastructure
    August 5, 2023

    GridMatrix’s breakthrough software platform for multimodal data collection and analytics is revolutionising transportation planning and decision making across the US. 

    Powered by artificial intelligence and combining the latest advances in cloud computing, machine learning and advanced sensing, GridMatrix’s platform is deployed in New York City on the world’s busiest bridges and tunnels, trusted by multiple state departments of transportation, and in a fast-growing number of American towns and cities. 

  • Inrix and CenNavi to deliver premium traffic services in China
    January 8, 2013
    US-headquartered traffic information and driver services provider Inrix is to partner with China’s traffic information services provider CenNavi to deliver premium real-time, predictive and historical traffic services across China. The companies say the collaboration leverages Inrix’s sophisticated traffic intelligence platform, vertical market expertise and connected services technologies with CenNavi’s real-time traffic information and advanced technologies, domestic experience and automotive relationship
  • US cities form OMF to develop digital mobility tools
    July 5, 2019
    A group of US cities have formed the Open Mobility Foundation (OMF) to develop and govern digital mobility tools aimed at improving how cities manage transportation. Growing from a collaboration between the Los Angeles Department of Transportation and the city of Santa Monica, the OMF intends to bring together academic and municipal stakeholders to develop the technology. Eric Garcetti, Los Angeles mayor, says: “The OMF will help us manage emerging transportation infrastructures, and make mobility more a
  • Road user charging potential solution to transportation problems
    December 14, 2012
    A number of new and highly significant open road tolling schemes have just been launched or are soon to ‘go live’. Systems of road user charging are flexing their muscles as the means to solve politically sensitive transportation problems, reports Jon Masters. Gothenburg, January 2013, will be the time and place for the launch of the next city congestion charging scheme in Europe. In a separate development, Los Angeles County’s tolled Metro ExpressLanes began operating in November 2012 – the latest in a ser