Traffic Analysis of Lahore Ring Road Project

Abstract

Transport planning at all levels requires understanding of actual conditions. This involves determination of vehicle or pedestrian numbers, vehicle types, vehicle speeds, vehicle weights, as well as more substantial information such as trip length and trip purpose and trip frequency, In short carrying out a traffic study. Rapid increase in the traffic of the Lahore City as a result of population growth and vehicle ownership has increased load/pressure on the existing road network of the city. Traffic patterns have also changed because of the expansion of the city towards south and relatively less towards south-east. Resultantly, abnormal traffic congestion and traffic jams are seen on almost all important city roads. According to Traffic Engineering & Transport Planning Agency (TEPA), all the major roads of the city are working at Level Of Service ‘F’ .So serious concerns regarding traffic congestion exists. Finally, as a solution it was decided to go with the concept of Ring Road. It provide relief to City Traffic Congestions , Existing City Road Network, Traffic of Suburban Settlements , Bypass for Congested Routes, Bypass for Inter District / Inter City Traffic, Polluted Environments without disturbing the city traffic during its construction period. The final route (91 Km) was critically examined by Dr. William C Taylor, Prof. of Michigan State University & was approved by Chief Minister Punjab on August 10, 2005. Presently, we are living in 2012 and Northern part (43.5 km) of LRRP is near to completion (8 interchanges are operational out of 9). Route of Southern part is redesigned and construction on Southern part of LRRP (47.5 km) has not been started yet and now making a final route of 91 km.. LRRP includes total of 15 interchanges. This project is aimed to carryout traffic analysis of Lahore Ring Road Project (LRRP) and for evaluating the effectiveness, advantages &impact of LRRP on city traffic. The basic purpose of our research project is to implement our knowledge regarding traffic study coarse practically so as to get the field experience by carrying out traffic analysis (including Level Of Service, Spot Speed tests, Vehicle Occupancy tests, Peak Hour Factor, Travel time tests etc) & Traffic Surveys (including O-D surveys, Interviews etc).