A block queueing system for slow moving traffic

A common cause of pollution and waste in urban areas is facilities which provide a continuous slow service for motor vehicles. As demand approaches supply, queues can develop and large numbers of engines can often be idling. Typical examples are car park entrances and drive through fast food outlets. This paper proposes a block queueing system to alleviate the problem without using excessive road space and with a minimum of extra infrastructure. The queue is divided into an active section at the front (with engines running) and a passive section at the rear (where drivers switch their engines off). Periodically, as the active queue becomes depleted, the passive queue is momentarily activated and a block of vehicles advances into the active queue. A visual cue can be provided to the drivers using a vehicle actuated traffic signal. It is readily apparent that drivers in the passive queue have to switch their engines on and off at regular intervals. Since this operation has an inherent cost in itself, this argues in favour of a large block size. However, large blocks mean more engines idling in the active queue. A compromise must be therefore reached for the likely range of queue lengths which the system under consideration exhibits. An expression is derived for the optimum block size in steady state conditions. It is shown that the potential benefits of the regime are considerable.