Intelligent transportation system in China: The optimal evaluation period of transportation’s application performance

There has been rapid development of intelligent transportation systems around the world, helping to relieve urban traffic congestion problems. In particular, many mega-cities in China have devoted significant money and resources to the development of intelligent transportation systems. However, appropriate evaluation period of the application effectiveness of intelligent transportation systems for urban setting remains poorly defined partly due to the hysteretic nature of both the construction of infrastructure transportation and the application effect displayed. In this study, Beijing City was investigated to determine the appropriate evaluation period to evaluate the application effect of the intelligent transportation system. Then the vector auto-regressive model is introduced to calculate the evaluation period of intelligent transportation system’s application effect. The results show a three-year lag length of the application effect in Beijing’s intelligent transportation system, which provides the rationale and reference methods to determine the appropriate evaluation period for similar projects. Finally, the importance and key criteria of determining the optimal evaluation period for intelligent transportation system are described.