Solution for Reduction of Traffic Congestion: A Case Study of Intersection on Badlapur- Katai Road

Abstract

The increasing vehicular traffic on roads is growing issue in today’s life. This leads to the congestion on the streets and degrades safe and efficient movement of traffic. This is becoming an important issue in the urban premises. It is observed that traffic congestions take place majorly at the intersections where the entering and exiting traffic from the towns to the highways creates conflicts due to improper movement. This study intended to examine flow of traffic at an intersection on Badlapur – Katai road in state of Maharashtra. The location is a part suburban areas of Mumbai metropolitan city. The Majority population is of working class also the industrial development in this area is high due to MIDC and thus the road carries huge traffic during peak hours. The study comprises of collection of the current traffic volume data, projection of the traffic for next 20 years and analysing the intersection for its serviceability. The outcomes may show the requirement of improvement of intersection as grade separated intersection.

Introduction

I. INTRODUCTION

Intersection design influences the capacity of the corridor and the safe movement of conflicting directions. The pattern of the traffic movements at the intersection and the volume of traffic on each approach, during on peak period of the day determine the lane widths required including the auxiliary lanes, traffic control devices and channelization, wherever necessary. The arrangement of the islands and shape, length of the auxiliary lanes also differs based upon the type of intersection. The general design principles of intersection design are the approach speeds, restriction on available land, sight distance available and the presence of the larger volume of all the road users in urban areas, although it is necessary that there should be an application of the knowledge about the local conditions while interpreting and arriving at the solution in terms of design. Intersections should have uniform design standards so that even a new comer in the area anticipates what to expect at the intersections.

II. NEED OF STUDY

Badlapur has become rapidly growing place attracting large traffic movement due to both residential and industrial development in its vicinity. The Badlapur – Katai road is the major link carrying huge traffic of light as well as heavy type of vehicles from Mumbai to suburban areas. Additionally, it is also carrying traffic towards Pune generated from central portion of Mumbai suburban. Ghorpade Chowk is the important junction on the road where major merging of traffic from Badlapur Town happens which leads to congestion. So there is need of proper study and upgradation of the intersection.

III. OBJECTIVES

The primary objective is to study the traffic condition at the intersection in the statistical form and to evaluate the performance of the intersection on the basis of the parameters such as Vehicle travel time. This can be done using the VISSIM software. Some necessary improvements at the intersections are also proposed in this thesis considering the future growth of the traffic at the particular locations.

A. To analyses the current traffic flow at the intersection.

The assessment of performance of the existing intersections is a necessary step in view of achieving the congestion free traffic movement at the intersection. Hence the current intersection layout is being analyzed for its performance. This can be done with help of the traffic count surveys and the simulation models.

B. To analyse the intersection for projected traffic conditions.

The traffic congestion issues are going to increase in the coming future. Hence it is necessary to evaluate the intersection for the future traffic conditions. Hence traffic projection becomes essential step. This objective can be achieved with help of suitable traffic growth factors. Further the intersection can be evaluated for future traffic conditions.

C. To reduce the number and severity of potential conflicts between cars, buses, trucks, bicycles and the pedestrians and minimize delay for through traffic.

The primary reason behind the congestion at the intersection is the disturbance to the through traffic due to the local traffic and the pedestrians in the urban areas. Hence this objective can be achieved by proposing improvements such as signalized junction or rotary junction or grade separated intersection. The pedestrian’s safety is also a major consideration while designing any intersection in urban areas.

D. To find usefulness of the simulation software VISSIM in designing of roads.

The above mentioned objectives are achieved on the basis of the evaluation of the design with help of the simulation model created using the VISSIM software. Hence to analyze the usefulness of the simulation software in view of cost saving and time saving is the objective of this thesis.

IV.  METHODOLOGY

After analyzing the problem statement and going thoroughly through the context and the need, existing literature review has been done to get an essence of the required research. This work was supportive to fix the outline of the work, which is to be carried out. As observed from the brief review of existing literature, many studies have incorporated their work on analyzing the roundabouts or other complex type of intersections for their efficiency or the performance. But there was very petite work observed to be done on the straight sections of roads, especially within the cities.

The intercity roads connecting the major areas of the city are prone to face lots of congestions, not only during peak hours, but also during off-peak hours. The lateral interactions of such straight road sections result into deprived capacity of the system, with unexpected delays experienced by the users which are the failure of the system design. Hence, a proper study is to be done in order to understand the complex behavior of traffic.

A junction location was selected in the present study. The study section was a 3 arm junction carrying traffic from city to the highway. For this video graphic data collection method was used. A wide-lens cameras were placed at junction location on pole for a clear view of the vehicles. This data was analyzed manually. The fundamental traffic parameters such as volume and density data were extracted from the video on a wide screen. The overall traffic was converted into five main types of vehicles for ease in the analysis, namely two-Wheeler (2W), Car, Bus and Heavy Goods Vehicle (HGV). One category of vehicle was extracted at a time, to avoid the possible errors. Further, these parameters of traffic were modelled in to simulation software PTV VISSIM. From this data vehicle travel time was calculated to cross the junction in all directions for current scenario. The proposal showing Solution to the traffic congestion is developed following the guidelines from IRC code. The Proposed improvement is designed so as to accommodate the proposed improvement within available ROW. The proposed improvement is then re verified with vehicle travel time data using VISSIM software.

A. Road Inventory

The project site was visited and details such as road width, adjacent buildings, Type of land use and other connectivity to the road are identified. Existing cross sectional details are taken by measuring with tape. The road components such as median, carriageway, paved shoulder, soft shoulder, Road side drain are measured. The type of approach road is identified and it’s graded accordingly. The DP map available at the corresponding Municipal Corporation can be utilized for Identifying the exact ROW.

B. Intersection Volume Count Survey

The Intersection volume count survey is done to understand traffic characteristics of each arm of intersection and to assess the need of signal control, grade separator etc. Intersection volume count survey was carried out junction on the project highway. The traffic on all arms is then checked to satisfy IRC specifications for signalization and for Grade separator if required. If the total peak hour traffic at intersection is more than 10,000 PCU/hr., then grade separator is warranted.

C. Traffic Data Analysis

The one-day traffic count is to be performed at the Intersection collecting the details of all the vehicles coming from each arm. The data is collected for 24 Hrs. at 15 min interval as per the Guidelines of the IRC: SP: 19 – 2001.The collected data is compiled in per Hour format to obtain Average Daily Traffic and Peak Hour Traffic data at the Intersection.

D. Traffic Growth Projection

The traffic data is also projected for assessing the future growth of the traffic. The Growth rates shall be produced on the bases of historical data like vehicle registration data from the local authority. In case of unavailability of the historical data growth rate of 7.5 can be adopted as per the guidelines in IRC: SP: 90-2010. In case of Grade separated structure the design life of 20 years shall be taken in consideration.

V. DATA ANALYSIS

A. Road Inventory Data

The governing body at the study area is Kulgaon Badlapur Municipal Corporation. The Major road passes through the Town acting as the important 4 lane road. This road carries heavy traffic towards Pune via Karjat Link road. The road improvements are usually done within the existing available ROW i.e. Right of ways. But in case of heavy Traffic conditions for the widening purpose of the road additional land can be acquired by the road development authorities. But that includes huge cost of land acquisition. The ROW details of this major road are derived from the DP map. The DP map obtained from the website of the Kulgaon Badlapur Municipal Corporation shows the DP width of the Badlapur - Katai Road passing through the town to be 30m.

VI.  ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 

At the end of my dissertation, it is a pleasant task to express my thanks to all those whocontributed in many ways to the success of this study and made it an unforgettable experience forme.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Mrs. Madhuri Nikam for his excellent guidance and continuous encouragement during course of my work. I truly appreciate for his vast knowledge and delight supervision and advice.

My special thanks to Prof. Dr. P. L. Naktode Head of Civil Engineering Department forhis constant inspiration and all the facilities provided to successfully complete this work.

I would also like to thank Prof. Dr. Anil Maheshwari Dean of the Institute who has provided me this opportunity to present this seminar.

I would also like to thank to all the faculty members of the department for their valuableguidance and support during the course of my work. Also, I would like to thank all my friends whohave directly or indirectly helped me in my project work throughout the course.

Conclusion

The Travel time taken by the vehicle too cross the junction in existing scenario and in case of the proposed improvements scenario has been compared to get the idea about the efficiency of the improvements. Following is chart showing details of vehicle travel time.It is seen that even after increase in the volume the travel time taken by the vehicles on 5 directions out of 6 is reduced. Hence this can be considered as the possible solution for the traffic. Further the first direction i.e. Ambernath-Badlapur the vehicle travel time is seen to be increasing this problem can be solved by providing dedicated left turning lane as chainage 0+300 Km. as an existing DP road is connecting to major highway and goes parallel to the approach road. It is found very much helpful to make use of simulation software such as VISSIM for getting the fare idea about the performance of the design on the basis of various parameters.

References

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Copyright

Copyright © 2022 Pratik Diliprao Konge, Madhuri Nikam. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.