Thinking about travel time as a more effective indication of distance, the highway traject visualization show the effects of highway congestion on travel time.
This animation shows highway trajects from Utrecht (centre of the map) to other main cities in The Netherlands. The distances have been replaced by travel times for each traject. Starting on Monday at 0:00 and finishing on Friday 23:50, the animation shows how travel times are affected by congestions along the work week specially at certain times of the day. During rush hours the graphic expands in different directions and at night the graphic returns to the original form.
The data used have been provided by the client and consist of average travel times during 2005.
Monday versus Friday congestion
In this animation travel times during Monday (blue) and Friday (green) are compared.
It is easy to see that in the morning, Monday’s congestion is much higher than Friday’s. In the afternoon, Friday’s congestion starts earlier than on Monday and it is also much higher.