Bandung the 14th most congested city in Asia

Bandung was once seen as the ideal weekend getaway destination for Jakartans wanting to escape the capital’s maddening macet, but a new study showed that the West Java city has become even more congested than Jakarta

In late September, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) published a study called the 2019 Update of the Asian Development Outlook, which focuses on matters related to growth in 278 Asian cities. Among the yardsticks for urban growth is traffic congestion, and the study goes about measuring congestion in Asia’s large cities (those with a population of at least 5 million) by determining the time needed to travel during peak hours compared to non-peak hours.

The result may come as a surprise to us in Indonesia, as Bandung came 14th on the list with a congestion value nearing 1.2, meaning that its citizens spend close to 20% more time on the road during peak hours than off-peak hours. Jakarta came 17th in the list, while Surabaya was the only other Indonesian city at 20th.

Traffic Congestion and Urban Heat Island (UHI)

Although transport has resulted in many beneficial effects on society, but their development in fact have negative impacts on the environment. The car policy caused many problems such as: - the spectacular growth of fuel consumption hence the very vast increase in urban pollution, traffic congestion in certain places and at certain times, the increase in the number of accidents. The exhaust emissions from cars and weather conditions are the main factors that determine the level of pollution in urban atmosphere. These conditions lead to the phenomenon of heat transfer and radiation occurring between the air and the soil surface. These exchanges give rise, in urban areas, to the effects of heat islands that correspond to the appearance of excess air temperature between the city and its surrounding space.

This study incorporates vehicle mobility data by leveraging two different sensors; fixed station sensor instruments designed to integrate with the Internet of Things (IoT), and the camera of area traffic control system (ATCS) that is using CCTV visualization with object detection. The microclimate using the object detection and time-based traffic volume analysis, we obtain the level of the queue rate (λ) to present the level of the traffic flow based on the average velocity of the vehicle flow. Following the result, it is shown that the average temperature in urban areas is higher than in suburban areas and the severe traffic jam caused a significant increase in temperature, that is until 7 Celsius when the weather is sunny.