Prospective Traffic Assessment for DHA Multan Using PTV VISUM

Abstract

Transportation is considered to be the life wire of a country’s economy. In Pakistan, road transportation is the most popular mode of transportation because of its several advantages. People who afford buying a private transport do not hesitate in doing that since public transport infrastructure in Pakistan is immensely underdeveloped as compared to other developing economies. Increase in population and vehicle buying power of people has resulted in increase of vehicles exponentially. The present road networks will not be able to withstand such large traffic flows in future leading to traffic congestion, long queues and ultimately wastage of time, money and resources. Strategic transportation planning is the only feasible solution the world is looking after. Macroscopic and microscopic simulation models using software like VISSIM, VISUM etc. enable stakeholder to accurately foresee the futuristic traffic condition of the study area and take decisions accordingly in order to get the maximum advantage of the available resources. The facility can be accurately designed with a capacity that can accommodate the required growth factors. The same has been done in this case study for DHA Multan. A project of this level is definitely going to be the game changer in south Punjab that will attract a lot of resources and investments. It is important to model the traffic trips that are generated from DHA to Multan city, within DHA, and from Multan city to DHA Multan to foresee the futuristic traffic conditions within DHA on main boulevards and on the roads leading to DHA linking DHA with the Multan city. We have divided the full scale development of DHA Multan in tenures of 5 years, each tenure representing partial development of DHA and its impact on the traffic attraction and production regarding DHA. VISUM uses basic four step model to generate the trips. The whole model is divided into number of zones with each has its own population and household classification. After successfully running the model in VISUM and simulating traffic in VISSIM, it is recommended that the red areas which represent traffic congestion in future need road enlargements, traffic signals and alternate routes for smooth traffic flow. The analysis clearly recommends the upgradation of the current facility.