Upgrading of Milner and Klipfontein Road Southbound Approach to alleviate traffic issues

Introduction The population of the world is increasing at a rate of 1.07% each year. In order to accommodate this growth, quality and efficiency of services need to be improved. This includes improving the quality and efficiency of the transportation services, as a country's sustainability is reliant upon these systems. In many countries, the increase in population has congested the CBD areas, forcing people to migrate outside of the CBD. This has resulted in urban sprawl. However, the apartheid era has resulted in urban sprawl in South Africa, which left many people living along the periphery, close to the industrial areas and a distance away from the CBD. One of the biggest challenges people living outside of the CBD area experience, is a poor and unreliable public transport system. It is difficult for people to access other areas and this has increased the number of private vehicles on the road. According to a list of the top 10 countries with the highest public transport ridership, that was developed by Worldatlas.com (2019), Kenya has the highest public transport ridership. Of the total population, 63% of the people use public transport. Furthermore, the other 9 countries mentioned have ridership volumes ranging from 53% to 57%. This proves that 40% to 50% of the population in other countries is still using private vehicles above public transport and this is still considered high. Research Problem The use of private vehicles in South Africa has been on the rise. As a result, the congestion levels on the roads have increased. This has resulted in longer travel times, busier roads and an increase in road accidents as drivers spend more time travelling to and from destinations. Milner and Klipfontein Road is located in Mowbray. The intersection is surrounded by a shopping mall, a hospital, a clinic, a school and a number of other amenities. Therefore, the traffic travelling through this intersection daily is relatively high. The southbound approach of Milner and Klipfontein Road intersection, however, has the highest volume of traffic operating through the intersection daily, as it connects the M5 highway (Class 2) and Raapenberg Road (Class 3) to Klipfontein Road (Class 3). The southbound approach is a three-lane approach, of which one lane is a short turning lane. With high volumes of traffic operating through this approach daily, the road tends to get very congested, especially during the peak period. The high congestion levels have resulted in a number of other issues, which include longer travel times from Alexandra and Raapenberg Road intersection to Milner and Klipfontein Road intersection, vehicles struggling to change lanes due to limited gap length available and spilling of traffic onto Raapenberg Road. This study will, therefore, focus on finding suitable measures to assist with alleviating the congestion as well the other issues currently being experienced along the southbound approach of Milner and Klipfontein Road. Literature Review It is important to manage the transport system as this affects the economy of the country. There are two types of traffic congestion and they are either recurrent or non-recurrent. Traffic congestion is a result of having too many vehicles on the road i.e. when the demand is larger than the supply. It is, therefore, necessary to improve the quality of a road or an intersection. There are three types of intersection designs and they include: priority control, traffic signals and rotary movement control. It is important to determine the most efficient way for an intersection to operate by determining the way in which conflicting volumes will be served. To avoid undesirable delays and deal with large volumes of traffic, signalised or rotary movement is often preferred. At signalised intersections, it is important to measure the effectiveness of an intersection by evaluating its performance and the design of the signal process as this can affect the time of travel, choice of route, mode of transport and If the route will be completed. To measure the effectiveness of the signalised intersection, the following elements must be assessed: the capacity, the volume to capacity ratio, the delay and the queue length. The Level of Service (LOS) also plays an important role in determining the operation of the intersection and provides the engineer or designer with information related to the type of flow or movement at each approach and intersection. The signal design plays an important role in the operation of the intersection too. It is important to ensure that the signal timing is correct as this can affect the flow of traffic. There are different signal controls that can be implemented, and they include, semi actuated, fully actuated and fixed timing. To retime a signalised intersection is considered the most cost-effective method of redesign. Phasing of the intersection is important as this can affect the level of service of operation of the intersection. To determine which phasing is necessary, the following must be assessed: the number of road accidents, the sight distance available, the geometry of the road, speeds of vehicles, the total volumes and the operation of the intersection. Unsignalised intersections are generally not preferred as volumes and speeds differ at each approach. High accident statistics are expected. This affects the overall capacity and operation of an intersection. Rotary movement control which refers to roundabouts or traffic circles, can handle larger volumes of traffic and reduce conflicting movements. They are therefore, considered much safer than other forms of at-grade intersections. The literature review will provide more detail regarding traffic congestion, intersection design and measuring the effectiveness of an intersection. Data collection and Analysis The site investigation was undertaken on 20 February 2019 between the AM peak (6:00 and 8:30) and the PM peak (16:00 and 18:30), to determine the extent of the traffic congestion currently being experienced, along the southbound approach of Milner and Klipfontein Road. Based on the findings, the PM peak period was considered the “worst case scenario”. A traffic count was not required; as previous traffic count data was available from the City of Cape Town records. A full traffic count was completed in 2017 for the entire intersection. A travel time survey was undertaken on Wednesday, 24 July 2019 between 16:00 and 18:00. The runs were calculated at 10-minute intervals. The data obtained from this survey was validated against the traffic count survey to determine whether the data obtained from City of Cape Town records, was indeed correct. It should be noted that the travel time survey was only completed during the PM peak, as the majority of traffic travel along that approach (direction towards home), during the PM peak. It was also confirmed to be the time of day when traffic was the worst. During the process of the travel time survey, a separate survey was completed to determine the direction in which vehicles were travelling. The vehicles were monitored from where they entered the southbound approach (M5 highway or Raapenberg Road), whether they stayed in the lane they entered the approach or whether they changed lanes. This survey would determine the destination of travel. Furthermore, vehicles changing lanes, were also further monitored, to determine if they were undertaking this movement legally or illegally. A solid white line, located approximately 200m away from the signalized Milner and Klipfontein intersection, separates the two lanes entering from M5 highway and Raapenberg Road. It prevents vehicles from changing lanes when unsafe to do so. The data was captured in Sidra and Junction to assess the delay and level of service at the intersection and specifically along the southbound approach of Milner and Klipfontein Road intersection. Results and findings The southbound approach is a three-lane approach. It comprises of a left lane, which is used for straight ahead movements and left turning movements, a middle lane used for straight ahead movements and a short right turn lane. The traffic count data that was obtained from the City of Cape Town records for 2017, established that a high volume of traffic passed through Milner and Klipfontein Road intersection daily. The peak periods of the day had a variation in the volumes of traffic along each approach, except for the southbound approach, which had high volumes of traffic at both peak periods. Majority of the traffic enters from either M5 highway or Raapenberg Road and exits onto Milner or Klipfontein Road eastbound. The signal phasing at the intersection comprises 4 phases, with no priority given to the southbound approach eastbound movements, even though the highest traffic volumes travelling in that direction. This has resulted in traffic congestion and a backlog of traffic onto Raapenberg Road. As a result, vehicles take longer than necessary to reach the intersection. The travel time survey investigated vehicles travelling from Alexandra and Raapenberg Road towards Milner and Klipfontein Road. The total distance is 1.2km in length. On average, a driver driving at a speed of 60km/hr. (length of road is short, and it bends), should take 3 minutes and 20 seconds to complete this stretch of road. This total time is inclusive of the signal system. It took vehicles more than 7 minutes to complete the 1.2km distance. The road accident statistics also indicate that a high number of accidents take place at Milner and Klipfontein Road intersection. Over the latest five-year period, a total of 256 accidents took place at the intersection. Of the 256 accidents, 53% of the accidents took place along the southbound approach. Furthermore, the directional survey also established that majority of the vehicles entering from both Raapenberg and the M5 highway, were travelling eastbound along Klipfontein Road. Majority of the vehicles changing lanes, have however, done this legally (not crossing the solid line). As a result, many vehicles were merged between two lanes, obstructing oncoming vehicles. It is evident from the results that there is a need for mitigating measures. High volumes of traffic are experienced along the southbound approach, with a high portion of this traffic wanting to make use of the left lane. Limited gaps are available for changing lanes, travel time is longer than expected and spilling of traffic is occurring on Raapenberg Road all due to high congestion levels along the southbound approach. It is therefore proposed that a roundabout be constructed at Milner and Klipfontein Road intersection to reduce conflicting movements, improve the delay and LOS of the intersection and reduce the issues currently being experienced along the southbound approach. Recommendations It is recommended that a proper design be completed to understand the proper effects in terms of operation of the intersection by implementation of a roundabout. Further research should be undertaken to determine the effect of the roundabout on the AM peak

Evaluation of when road space prioritisation/infrastructural improvements for paratransit vehicles is warranted: A case study of Mitchells Plain, Cape Town

In many developing countries, the cities have confined or absolute non-availability of modern quality public transport systems, therefore residents of these cities solely rely on non-scheduled, informal, flexible route transportation system referred to as ‘Paratransit’ to move from one point to another. South Africa being a partly developed and partly developing country also have this particular problem in terms of its public transport system. Some 65% of public transport users make use of paratransit services as a day to day means of transport in South Africa. Paratransit is the most commonly used public transport mode in South African cities as it is relatively affordable and highly flexible. However, it is referred to be very unreliable in terms of journey time and passenger’s waiting time at stops mostly, due to time wasted in traffic congestion and at signalised intersections. So, actions are needed to be taken to improve the travel speed, safety and reliability of paratransit vehicles. In 2007, South Africa’s department of transport envisioned some strategies to revitalise public transport system in South Africa whereby one of the strategies is to replace paratransit called Mini-bus taxi in South Africa with scheduled trunk-feeder services. However, this has proven unachievable, due to resistant from the paratransit association. This dissertation aims to investigate under which traffic condition is road prioritisation/infrastructural improvement is warranted for paratransit vehicles in a trunk-feeder hybrid setting. The dissertation also explored how operations of the paratransit feeders service can be improved through infrastructural improvements and prioritisation on road space using the Mitchells Plain public transport interchange as a case study. An agent-based simulation modelling tool is employed to simulate the present trunk-feeder operations at the Mitchells Plain interchange thereby investigating how the passenger travel performance has been impacted by the configuration and operational characteristics of the current trunk-feeder public transport system. The modelling tool mimic an intermodal trunk feeder operation which include: Passengers arrival at the rank and stops to wait for taxi; boarding and alighting of passengers along the feeder’s route; transfers of passengers alighting from the taxi and walking of the passengers through the interchange to connect to their respective available trunk service public transport system. The main aim of this dissertation is to develop and investigate various infrastructure developments to the road network using road space prioritisation that can be implemented and their effect on the overall efficiency of the paratransit feeder’s system. Each of the proposed infrastructural improvements through prioritisation of paratransit vehicles on road space was tested in a normal and congested traffic condition to evaluate their effectiveness on the operational efficiency of paratransit feeder’s service at varying level of traffic congestion. The effect of the various network infrastructure improvements is being tested using the agent-based simulation tool with the main objectives of improving the operational performance of the paratransit feeder’s services which will lead to a more coordinated, integrated and sustainable trunk-feeder public transport system. The result of the model analysis showed that provision of dedicated lanes for paratransit vehicles is the most efficient infrastructural improvement strategy through road space prioritisation, especially in a traffic-congested route

Investigation of the road safety measures around schools in Ethekwini

Globally, road traffic injury is a leading cause of death and disability in children aged 15 to 19 and the second leading cause of death in children between the ages 10 to 14 years. This thesis reviewed literature regarding the extent of road traffic injuries involving child pedestrians, the risk factors for child pedestrians and the effectiveness of interventions aimed at road safety improvement. EThekwini Metro was used as a case study for investigating the magnitude of road traffic crashes involving child pedestrians around primary schools. The schools with the highest road traffic crashes were used to investigate the road and environment contributory factors to crashes and finally the interventions in place at these schools to reduce road traffic injuries. The magnitude of crashes was quantified by using road accident data obtained from eThekwini Metro and the investigation of the interventions applied at the schools was conducted using Google Earth imagery, onsite inspections and administering a questionnaire to educators at the schools chosen for the case study. Results suggest that, in eThekwini, 32% of pedestrian crashes involve children from 0 to 19 years. The 6 to 10 year age group has the highest risk of road traffic injury and boys are 20% more likely to be involved in a crash compared to girls. The top ten primary schools with the highest road traffic crashes are located in middle and low income areas in eThekwini, these are, Sydenham, Jacobs and Umlazi Township. Most crashes took place where three or more schools are located within a kilometre radius of each other. Child behaviour contributed to 77% of the road traffic crashes. Scholar transport driver behaviour was highlighted as a major contributor to crashes by the respondents and environmental factors that resulted in reduced visibility of the child pedestrian contributed to 6% of the crashes. The main cause of road traffic injury, 68%, was crossing the road when it was unsafe to do so. Most crashes took place away from the intersection (58%), under clear and dry weather conditions (95%) during daylight (87%), between 13h00 to 15h30 (41%). Mondays and Fridays had highest incidents of road traffic crashes compared to other days of the week. Forty five percent (45%) of crashes took place on Class 5 local roads but all top ten schools with the highest road traffic crashes are located within a kilometre of a Class 3 distributor road or a class 4 collector road and these higher order roads have the highest crashes per road associated with the primary schools in their vicinity. Traffic calming, in the form of speed humps are only provided on roads where school entrances are located and are not provided on other roads even the roads with the highest road traffic crashes. Pedestrian crossings that direct pedestrians to a safe crossing location, road signs and road markings that warn drivers about the school are also generally not provided. The study revealed that road safety education is not formally provided in the school’s curriculum, it is taught as part of the Life Skills subject. The content and type of training is decided upon by the Life Skills teachers. Practical training is only provided at two of the schools, in all other schools, road safety education is taught and tested in a classroom environment. The author recommends that further studies be conducted on child pedestrian road safety around schools to obtain a full understanding of the road and environmental risk factors, that the municipality adopts the school zone concept and develops a policy for road safety interventions within the school zones. The municipality must also constantly monitor road traffic crashes involving child pedestrians, collect necessary data and test the effectiveness of measures applied to reduce the risks for child pedestrian crashes, investigate the possibility of providing grade separated pedestrian crossing facilities on higher order roads within a kilometre radius of the schools, initiate a scholar transport driver training programme and to assist the schools in the provision of road safety education by providing facilities where practical road safety training can be taught

A community approach to road safety education using practical training methods : the Drumchapel project

Research shows that practical training methods, in which children receive guided experience of solving traffic problems in realistic traffic situations, are amongst the most effective in improving children's pedestrian competence. However, practical training is both time consuming and labour intensive, making it difficult to capitalise on the strengths of the method. The report describes a solution to this problem by adopting a community participation approach in which local volunteers carried out all roadside training, working in co-operation with schools and project staff. The project took place in an area of Glasgow known for its exceptionally high child pedestrian accident rate

Passenger Flows in Underground Railway Stations and Platforms, MTI Report 12-43

Urban rail systems are designed to carry large volumes of people into and out of major activity centers. As a result, the stations at these major activity centers are often crowded with boarding and alighting passengers, resulting in passenger inconvenience, delays, and at times danger. This study examines the planning and analysis of station passenger queuing and flows to offer rail transit station designers and transit system operators guidance on how to best accommodate and manage their rail passengers. The objectives of the study are to: 1) Understand the particular infrastructural, operational, behavioral, and spatial factors that affect and may constrain passenger queuing and flows in different types of rail transit stations; 2) Identify, compare, and evaluate practices for efficient, expedient, and safe passenger flows in different types of station environments and during typical (rush hour) and atypical (evacuations, station maintenance/ refurbishment) situations; and 3) Compile short-, medium-, and long-term recommendations for optimizing passenger flows in different station environments

Texas Transportation Researcher

Quarterly publication of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute discussing their research as well as professional and service activities. It includes articles about research and innovations in various areas related to transportation in Texas

Housing and Mobility Toolkit for San Mateo County

Since the end of the Great Recession, San Mateo County has attracted new workers at a record rate without building anywhere near enough housing. This jobs-housing imbalance drives the cost of housing up and forces many moderate and lower-income employees and their families out of the County. A lack of access to quality affordable housing in the County and the entire Bay Area along with limited transportation options means that an increased number of employees drive in and out of the County every workday. The resultant congestion, gridlock, and long commutes along with other negative environmental, social, and economic impacts create a major concern for communities in the County and beyond. Clearly, this problem has two distinct but interrelated dimensions: housing development and transportation planning. A select group of Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI) Research Associates worked closely with representatives from the San Mateo County Home for All initiative to help address this challenge by developing a toolkit of successful case studies with a holistic approach to housing development and transportation planning

Impact of Indoor Mobility Behavior on the Respiratory Infectious Diseases Transmission Trends

The importance of indoor human mobility in the transmission dynamics of respiratory infectious diseases has been acknowledged. Previous studies have predominantly addressed a single type of mobility behavior such as queueing and a series of behaviors under specific scenarios. However, these studies ignore the abstraction of mobility behavior in various scenes and the critical examination of how these abstracted behaviors impact disease propagation. To address these problems, this study considers people's mobility behaviors in a general scenario, abstracting them into two main categories: crowding behavior, related to the spatial aspect, and stopping behavior, related to the temporal aspect. Accordingly, this study investigates their impacts on disease spreading and the impact of individual spatio-temporal distribution resulting from these mobility behaviors on epidemic transmission. First, a point of interest (POI) method is introduced to quantify the crowding-related spatial POI factors (i.e., the number of crowdings and the distance between crowdings) and stopping-related temporal POI factors (i.e., the number of stoppings and the duration of each stopping). Besides, a personal space determined with Voronoi diagrams is used to construct the individual spatio-temporal distribution factor. Second, two indicators (i.e., the daily number of new cases and the average exposure risk of people) are applied to quantify epidemic transmission. These indicators are derived from a fundamental model which accurately predicts disease transmission between moving individuals. Third, a set of 200 indoor scenarios is constructed and simulated to help determine variable values. Concurrently, the influences and underlying mechanisms of these behavioral factors on disease transmission are examined using structural equation modeling and causal inference modeling.....

Towards the simulation of cooperative perception applications by leveraging distributed sensing infrastructures

With the rapid development of Automated Vehicles (AV), the boundaries of their function alities are being pushed and new challenges are being imposed. In increasingly complex and dynamic environments, it is fundamental to rely on more powerful onboard sensors and usually AI. However, there are limitations to this approach. As AVs are increasingly being integrated in several industries, expectations regarding their cooperation ability is growing, and vehicle-centric approaches to sensing and reasoning, become hard to integrate. The proposed approach is to extend perception to the environment, i.e. outside of the vehicle, by making it smarter, via the deployment of wireless sensors and actuators. This will vastly improve the perception capabilities in dynamic and unpredictable scenarios and often in a cheaper way, relying mostly in the use of lower cost sensors and embedded devices, which rely on their scale deployment instead of centralized sensing abilities. Consequently, to support the development and deployment of such cooperation actions in a seamless way, we require the usage of co-simulation frameworks, that can encompass multiple perspectives of control and communications for the AVs, the wireless sensors and actuators and other actors in the environment. In this work, we rely on ROS2 and micro-ROS as the underlying technologies for integrating several simulation tools, to construct a framework, capable of supporting the development, test and validation of such smart, cooperative environments. This endeavor was undertaken by building upon an existing simulation framework known as AuNa. We extended its capabilities to facilitate the simulation of cooperative scenarios by incorporat ing external sensors placed within the environment rather than just relying on vehicle-based sensors. Moreover, we devised a cooperative perception approach within this framework, showcasing its substantial potential and effectiveness. This will enable the demonstration of multiple cooperation scenarios and also ease the deployment phase by relying on the same software architecture.Com o rápido desenvolvimento dos Veículos Autónomos (AV), os limites das suas funcional idades estão a ser alcançados e novos desafios estão a surgir. Em ambientes complexos e dinâmicos, é fundamental a utilização de sensores de alta capacidade e, na maioria dos casos, inteligência artificial. Mas existem limitações nesta abordagem. Como os AVs estão a ser integrados em várias indústrias, as expectativas quanto à sua capacidade de cooperação estão a aumentar, e as abordagens de perceção e raciocínio centradas no veículo, tornam-se difíceis de integrar. A abordagem proposta consiste em extender a perceção para o ambiente, isto é, fora do veículo, tornando-a inteligente, através do uso de sensores e atuadores wireless. Isto irá melhorar as capacidades de perceção em cenários dinâmicos e imprevisíveis, reduzindo o custo, pois a abordagem será baseada no uso de sensores low-cost e sistemas embebidos, que dependem da sua implementação em grande escala em vez da capacidade de perceção centralizada. Consequentemente, para apoiar o desenvolvimento e implementação destas ações em cooperação, é necessária a utilização de frameworks de co-simulação, que abranjam múltiplas perspetivas de controlo e comunicação para os AVs, sensores e atuadores wireless, e outros atores no ambiente. Neste trabalho será utilizado ROS2 e micro-ROS como as tecnologias subjacentes para a integração das ferramentas de simulação, de modo a construir uma framework capaz de apoiar o desenvolvimento, teste e validação de ambientes inteligentes e cooperativos. Esta tarefa foi realizada com base numa framework de simulação denominada AuNa. Foram expandidas as suas capacidades para facilitar a simulação de cenários cooperativos através da incorporação de sensores externos colocados no ambiente, em vez de depender apenas de sensores montados nos veículos. Além disso, concebemos uma abordagem de perceção cooperativa usando a framework, demonstrando o seu potencial e eficácia. Isto irá permitir a demonstração de múltiplos cenários de cooperação e também facilitar a fase de implementação, utilizando a mesma arquitetura de software