CDOT contracted with the University of Colorado at Denver to evaluate the program. This article describes the courtesy patrol program and summarizes the evaluation of its effectiveness. The challenge is to develop alternate methods of reducing traffic congestion, especially in areas like Denver, Colorado, where air quality is out of compliance with national standards. As speeds decrease, trip times increase. Congestion on urban freeways results in an estimated annual loss of two billion vehicle hours.
Traffic congestion increases fuel consumption.
It also increases collision rates. Congestion is not always the unavoidable result of too many vehicles for the designed capacity of the freeway. The Federal Highway Administration estimates that when an incident blocks one lane of a three-lane roadway, traffic capacity reduces by half. According to estimates from the California Department of Transportation, each minute saved in clearing away an incident yields a reduction in motorist delays of four to five minutes. Since projections suggest vehicle miles traveled in the Denver metro area will increase from the present 34 million to 65 million by 2010, traffic congestion problems will get worse.