Star Rating of Urban an Arterial Road Using IRAP Methodology and Analysis of Existing Pedestrian Infrastructure Facilities on Urban Arterial and Related Safety Issues

Abstract

Pakistan is country which contains large network of road infrastructure that is expanding day by day with the passage of the time. The improper maintenance of the roads causes the formation of the cracks that consequently leads road users towards severe accidents. Car occupants, motorbikes, bicyclists and pedestrians are the road users. For car occupant’s lane marking, delineation, adequate sight distance is not provided properly. Similarly for the pedestrian’s zebra crossing, bridges to cross the road, pedestrians sign boards and sidewalk etc. are not provide adequately. Therefore in order to judge the road infrastructure related to all road users star rating methodology is being utilized at international level in more than 50 countries. IRAP is an International Road Assessment program that is derived from Euro RAP and Aus. RAP to reduce the cost of road crashes. The IRAP methodology was adopted for an urban arterial road in small segments and results were analyzed. In the research the selected stretch was from Faisal mover’s terminal to roomy park. Total stretch contained 15 km from N/B and 15 km from S/B accumulating it becomes 30 km. star rating is done on the basis of worst 100 meter subsection within the 1 km section. Star rating is done individually for each road user as road protection score is calculated separately for each road users. Star rating depends on the road protection score that further depends on the condition of collected road infrastructure elements. It is concluded that most of the stretches of the road are one and two star while very few sections have three and four star. This shows that in Pakistan safe road sides, well design intersections, adequate sight distance and appropriate cross section are not present related to all road users and improvement in the road infrastructure elements is badly needed to avoid likelihood and severity of the crashes on the urban arterial roads. In this research the crossing behavior of the pedestrians at all crossing point of the selected stretch of an urban arterial road was observed and remedial measures are provided related to their crossing issues.