Lean Sigma and Transportation

The following is from Alan Kandel, writer and retired engineer who now focuses his attention to air quality in California and the impact transportation contributes to it.  Though short, his ideas provide insight for further studies and research.  

Read your latest post on process. Streamlining processes to make operations more efficient regardless of application should be pursued. I am reminded of transportation.

You would be amazed as to the amount of waste there is in the transportation realm. If you want to know just how much there is in the United States when it comes to driving then you'll want to check out the Texas A&M Transportation Institute's 2015 Urban Mobility Scorecard https://mobility.tamu.edu/ums/report/; you would be astonished to learn how much fuel, money and time is wasted as a result of American drivers stuck in traffic. Building one's way out of the congestion mess (crisis?) isn't a solution. In my The Departure Track book I pointed out that according to the American Society of Civil Engineers, America's highways have a 42 percent congestion rate (in 2013). That's a 58 percent non-congestion rate which, by any measure, is failure. In industry, that would be unacceptable. So, why do we find it to be okay when it comes to driving? I am convinced that applying the continuous improvement, Lean Six Sigma principles to land use and transportation planning (the two areas go hand in hand) could really make a significant difference.

At any rate there is an interesting article about artificial intelligence in the Fall 2016 issue of Cal Poly Magazine (magazine.calpoly.edu). The article of most interest to me is called "The Shape of Cities" - the focus is self-driving cars. If ever implemented, this has the potential to cause even more congestion than what there is already as people who would not otherwise be behind the wheel would all of a sudden be in vehicles being shuttled about autonomously, not to mention cars operating sans drivers waiting for their next assignments. It is a really interesting topic of discussion to say the least. - Alan Kandel