An exercise in creative problem-solving using the example of traffic congestion

Traffic congestion in cities is an excellent problem for creative effort. Solutions are likely to be as expensive and impractical as underground railway systems. Restrictions on the sale or use of cars are likely to be politically unpopular. And those car owners who choose not to drive into the city benefit those who continue to drive in. More and better roads attract more traffic. And...

• In Bangkok, it now takes over three hours to drive out to the airport. Jakarta in Indonesia is getting very bad.

• In Lima, Peru, any car can put a card on the windscreen announcing it is a taxi. Buses are privately owned by individuals and race down the roads to compete for passengers.

• Singapore seeks to restrict car ownership by auctioning 'permission to buy a car' certificates every month. At one time such certificates cost around $100,000 for a larger car and $60,000 for a smaller car. This made it hard for teachers and public servants on fixed salaries.

What else can be done? Car access can be limited to odd or even number plates on alternate days - but this can be got round. Licences may be issued only for evening and weekend use. If there is the possibility of parking, then people spend a long time on the road looking for parking spaces. The possibility of low-cost travel, as in Lima, increases the need for travel, because markets survive that would otherwise have closed down.

The problem is certainly going to get worse. Added to the basic travel problem there is smog and pollution as in Los Angeles, Athens, Mexico City and Santiago, Chile. Any solution must be simple, effective, politically acceptable to car owners, durable and not too expensive to implement or administer.

Various suggestions are available for making driving in the city less attractive. There can be tolls for entering the central area (as in Singapore). Road metering is technically viable but expensive to install. Special, expensive licences for driving in the city during the day have also been tried.

What is interesting about this problem, as a creative exercise, is that there is no shortage of suggestions or ideas. It is the implementation of the ideas that is difficult. The ideas may be expensive or require heavy monitoring. Cheating may be easy. Politically, too, car drivers have votes.

There are several broad approaches. The first broad approach, or direction, is to reduce traffic. There are many ways in which this might be done. The most obvious concept is to discourage drivers. This can be done by regulations, by making it expensive to drive in the city and by providing no parking facilities. The use of vehicles which carry several people (high density vehicles) is another approach. This suggests buses and public transport. It also suggests car pooling, multiple taxis, 'high occupancy vehicle lanes', etc.

The 'encourage' approach is much less easy to think about than the 'discourage' approach. How might motorists be encouraged not to drive their cars into the city? Free public transport vouchers might be given in exchange for toll fees. This would probably not be sufficient to persuade motorists to use public transport. The vouchers would probably be sold. Making public transport much more attractive could be done by having very high standard 'executive' buses at a higher fare, but luxurious in style. The sheer availability of taxis, as in Manhattan, coupled with difficulty in parking, works reasonably well. But the taxis have to be there.

It could be that all motorists are issued with city permits, but that four city permits are required to get a city licence. So those who really want to drive in need to buy permits from those who would rather have the money from the sale of their permits. This would directly 'reward' motorists for not using their cars.

A classic provocation: 'Po, we reward motorists for driving into the city' leads to the idea that each motorist registers his or her car for one day of the week. On that day the motorist is especially privileged; special car parks, waiving certain restrictions, half-price offences, etc. This would mean that one motorist would get a Monday disc and take his friends with him on Monday. A neighbour would get a Tuesday disc, etc. There would now be a direct incentive to share cars.

EXPECTATION
The traffic problem highlights the huge importance of expectations in creative problem-solving. People expect to own cars. This is even more so in developing countries where getting to own your first car is very important both for yourself and also in terms of social status. So the problem is likely to get worse in such countries. In New York, no one minds not owning a car, but in Bombay you want to own a car as soon as you can afford it. People who own cars expect to be able to drive that car wherever there is a road. So they expect to use the car as freely within the city as elsewhere.

Certain cities now have designated pedestrian areas. No motorist expects to drive a car in such areas. The introduction of such areas needs to be carefully planned. They should be small at first and should not cause much disruption. Gradually they can be expanded so that eventually driving into the city is not a great convenience at all. In this way expectations can be changed slowly. People come to expect to use taxis, buses, subways and monorails. The design of creeping changes in expectation is important.

In practice, expectations can also work the other way around. In theory, nothing needs to be done about the traffic problem. Let it get worse and worse, and eventually motorists will stop driving into the city, and the problem will correct itself. This does not seem to work in practice for several reasons. Motorists gradually come to expect the traffic to be bad. They continue to drive - and to complain - but do not stop driving, because their expectations have changed to encompass crowded roads. When the traffic is really bad, there is no point in switching to buses, because these will be no better. Indeed, the slowness of the buses creates a huge need for more buses, a need which is rarely met. So public transport is not an alternative.

The traffic problem illustrates the difference between mechanical, commercial and political creative problem-solving. With a mechanical problem you can think of ideas. Your knowledge of basic physical laws will tell you whether the idea will work or not. Such laws are permanent. If necessary you try out the idea with a prototype or a computer simulation. So a good idea that solves the problem remains a good idea. It is true that some ideas are less expensive than others, and will therefore be more acceptable.

With business or commercial problems the physical laws are less known and less permament. Nevertheless if we raise value or reduce price we might reasonably expect more sales. It is also possible to test-market and to pilot ideas. If the idea makes commercial sense, then we can decide to go ahead. In the commercial world there are also 'loop' effects. Physical laws are unchangeable, but social laws are not. If you lower prices, you should get more sales - but this does not always follow. If your competitors react by also lowering prices, then you do not get more sales, and everyone gets less profit. It could also be that lowering prices gives the impression of poorer quality and thus allows competitors to associate better quality with their high prices. Things are not as static in the commercial world as in the physical world.

In the political world things are much more difficult. For one thing, there is no possibility of 'test-marketing' an idea. The idea has to be used fully and universally. In the physical world, if an idea does not work out in testing you modify or drop the idea. In the commercial world if an idea is not successful, the loss need not be huge. But the political consequences of a failed initiative are great. The failed idea may hang around almost forever as an example of 'incompetence'.

The fact that an idea would work well, if everyone was willing to give it a chance, is irrelevant. You can never suppose that everyone is going to be willing to give the idea a chance. Any idea that goes throgh a 'rough' period before the benefits are seen is also not politically acceptable. People look at and respond to the 'rough' period. Though the idea may work well overall, there will be small groups that may be disadvantaged. Such groups will stir up a protest out of proportion to their numbers. The media will amplify that protest, because protest is longer-lasting than success.

Does all this mean that creativity is not as applicable in the political world as in the mechanical world? It does not. What it does mean is that in the political world just as much attention has to be paid to the acceptability of an idea as is paid to its 'functionality'. An idea that works well on paper but is unacceptable is useless. This means that the design of ideas has to take immediate and direct account of where and how the idea is to be used. This is no longer a matter of adjusting the idea later - as might be the case in the physical world. In the political world the ideal solution is one that is simple and cheap to introduce; is seen to be attractive and fair to everyone; and gradually grows in its effectiveness until it is universally in use.

SUMMARY

Traffic provides a useful illustration of a problem for which there are a huge number of possible solutions. The practical implementation of the solutions is, however, far from easy. The problem serves as a reminder that the design of solutions must take into account the real world in which the solution is to be used.