Posted on Mon, 22 Apr 2019
Looking at the snail chart for March 2019, I am glad that Punggol Road is not the champion.
However, I also notice something glaring - Thomson Road is holding the #1 and #3 spot.
Is it possible? Well, if you look under Statistics > Incidents, you will see that Thomson Road has been chalking up some major congestions in late March 2019:
| Date | Time | Day | Road [Direction] | Mins |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29/03 | 3:13pm | Fri | Thomson Road (Balestier Road Junction) [Towards PIE] | 95.00 |
| 27/03 | 10:49am | Wed | Thomson Road (Balestier Road Junction) [Towards CTE] | 102.50 |
| 26/03 | 3:36pm | Tue | Thomson Road (Balestier Road Junction) [Towards PIE] | 102.52 |
| 23/03 | 11:23am | Sat | Thomson Road (Balestier Road Junction) [Towards CTE] | 102.00 |
| 22/03 | 3:45pm | Fri | Thomson Road (Balestier Road Junction) [Towards PIE] | 102.50 |
| 21/03 | 3:34pm | Thu | Thomson Road (Balestier Road Junction) [Towards PIE] | 107.48 |
| 19/03 | 1:27pm | Tue | Thomson Road (Balestier Road Junction) [Towards CTE] | 118.02 |
With the stats, I know the congestions have gotten worse but I am also curious to know why. That, I found out, is the challenging part because there are not many repositories that hold historical traffic information. Google search did not reveal any incidents (e.g. vehicle breakdown, accidents) so I had to rely solely on (backdated) news from LTA. Other than a handful of “heavy traffic” announcements, almost every update is about road works in that area.
This is what I have gathered after tabulating the monthly occurrence of road works for Q1 2019.
Note:
- Location of road works are approximated based on LTA’s description (e.g. Roadworks on Thomson Road [towards SLE] after Chancery Lane)
- Traffico monitors the bus arrival times of services 141, 167 and 851 along bus routes denoted in blue
Even though there isn’t a significant increase over the months, I believe the road works have contributed to the congestions one way or the other. I also believe Traffico can be another credible repository to help us piece traffic information together in times of retrospective search.
If you have any insights to share, do let us know.