Traffic Impact Analysis of Urban Construction Projects

Based on Traffic Simulation

Xiaofang Zou1,2 , Zhuo Wang1,2, Lei Zheng3, HongHui Dong1,2*, LiMin Jia1,2, Yong Qin1,2
1. State Key Laboratory of Rail Traffic Control and Safety (Beijing Jiaotong University), Beijing, 100044, China
E-mail: [email protected]
2. School of Traffic and transportation, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing, 100044, China
3. Department of computer,Shantou University, 515063,China
Abstract: In this paper, a systemic method to traffic impact analysis is proposed. Firstly, the traffic demand that the
project generates is forecasted according to the survey and analysis of the background traffic information. Then, the
traffic volume is distributed reasonably in order to make sure the balance of the project won’t be destroyed. At the same
time, we put forward the corresponding evaluation index and method and an integrated assessment index calculation
method and evaluation standard, thus reinforce the traffic organization management, and promote the development of the
city and the progress.
Key Words: Traffic Impact Analysis, Traffic Simulation, Traffic demand forecast, Traffic distribution

background and current situation, traffic forecast, traffic

1 INTRODUCTION assignment and traffic impact analysis [5]. Experiments are
carried out and results demonstrate the favorable
In recent years, the development of land in big cities performance in section 3. Finally, the paper is concluded in
increases rapidly with the development of economy. Land Section 4.
use effects on people's travel through the transport system.
Conversely, the development of transportation also plays a 2 METHOD DESCRIPTION
role on the development and utilization of land [1] [2].
Urban land development, especially in the construction of 2.1 The background and current situation of the
large-scale urban construction projects which due to its research scope
large-scale construction, produces and attracts traffic
around the road network project will inevitably have a huge To draw up the report of traffic impact analysis, we must
negative impact [3]. In this case, the urban construction determine the scope of the study first. The so-called scope
project traffic impact analysis is particularly important. of the study is to say that any construction project will have
Traffic Impact Analysis, which also known as traffic some impact on urban transport, which weakened gradually
impact assessment, is the study of the relationship between with the expansion of road network, and the scope of study
the growth in traffic demand and urban development is the part that has significant impact on the state of the
projects, and to determine the appropriate measures or network traffic. Generally, the research scope is 80% from
modification plan in order to reduce the traffic impact of the origin to destination. However, it usually according to the
development program by analysis of the extent of impact on specific circumstances of the project to be analyzed in
urban transportation. practical application . But practically, analysis depends on
the specific circumstances.
ITE Technical Advisory Committee issued the first
Introduce the background of the proposed project, the using
summary report of traffic impact analysis in 1988 which
of surrounding land and the transportation systems, and the
named "Guidelines for Transportation Impact Assessment
using of the land in the study zone as well as the traffic
of Proposed New Development", ITE also recommend the
planning in the future.
content and method of traffic impact [4] analysis to the
Traffic analysis of now is to figure out the information of
nation's by "Traffic Access and Impact Studies for Site
the main road and intersection as well as the flows during
Development" which form the basis of research in this field
the peak hours through the actual survey.
[1] [4]. Then, many countries have traffic impact analysis
of the related research. 2.2 Traffic demand forecast and traffic distribution
In this paper, we introduced a kind of system for urban forecast
construction project impact analysis method of traffic. The
Traffic demand forecasting usually use a two-stage method
paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we explain our
[5] [6], including background traffic forecast and volume
approach in detail. In Section 2.1, the determination of the
forecast. Background traffic forecasts refers to the portion
research scope is introduced. From sections 2.2 to 2.3, we
of traffic increased or decreased as time processes in the
describe respectively the steps of traffic analysis of project
case of the situation of surrounding land using and the
resources on roads maintain the same status, which mainly
This work is supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the based on the road around the project to respectively
Central Universities 2011JBM249 and the National Nature Science forecast. Project traffic forecasts include several methods,
Foundation under Grant . *Corresponding author such as the original unit model, type analysis, function
([email protected])

978-1-4577-2074-1/12/$26.00 2012
c IEEE 3923
 regression analysis and so on. Type analysis described here, surrounding roads and intersections of base development
first of all, is the surveys conducted, which is, investigating and construction [8],as well as service level of transport
the travel amount of an existed large hotel which built in the facilities; the second is to evaluate the rationality of the
same location, the similar scale and the same properties as entrance, inside and outside architectural designing, the
the proposed project. Then, we can forecast the travel Department internal transportation facilities, traffic,
amount of the proposed project through the trip generation parking, traffic safety and other aspects, making use of
model. At the time of trip generation analysis of proposed combination of quantitative and qualitative methods[7].
projects, we generally make the analogy from similar For urban roads, primary indicator to measure traffic
construction projects in the same location as a reference, quality of service is overcrowding at sections and
using category generation rate method. intersections (V/C), next is speed (road) or delay
Generate the model classes are as follows: (intersection). To facilitate research, V/C can be used as a
Q=RX (1) basic of the urban road section and intersection service
Where㧦 level of classification.
Q: The proposed project trip generation; According to the level standards of urban road section and
X: From the index value to determine the degree of intersection service (table 1), we can use the traffic level of
difficulty and the relationship between trip generation and service before the completion of the project to compute that
comprehensive selection of both gross floor area of after the completion of the project sections and the
residential areas for argument; maximum declining level of allowable levels at
R: Residential trip generation rate that is the unit volume of intersection, from which, we can seek maximum allowed
space produced the travel amount. traffic load effects of roads and intersections.
Traffic distribution forecast is the process of converting the Table1.Reference value divide of service level
trip generation and trip attraction in planning years of
traffic zone into the travel exchange between zones. service
V/C descriptions
level
Model introduction:
impeded traffic basically
Flat model formula: A <0.4
without delay
¦t j
ij B 0.4-0.6
Steady traffic, a small
number of delay
Li = (2) Steady traffic,
¦t b
j
ij j
C 0.6-0.75
have some delay
Nearly instable traffic,
D 0.75-0.9
more delay
¦ tij E 0.9-1.0
instable traffic,
Lj = i very big delay
(3)
¦t a
i
ij i F >1.0
force traffic flow,
serious traffic jam
Through the comprehensive application of these
Tij = tij aibj ( Li + L j ) / 2 (4) principles, we can effectively use traffic impact analysis
Where: as a control method to coordinated development of urban
Li is the position factor of the ith community; transport and micro land use. High level of background
Tij is the traffic volume from the ith community to the jth traffic service areas could encourage its development, on
community in current year; the contrary, the lower level of background traffic service
Lj is the position factor of the jth community; areas can limit its development, so as to avoid urban traffic
ai is the generation growth coefficient of the ith community; demands concentrating healthy, ensure orderly
bj is the attraction growth coefficient of the jth community;
development of the city. Determining the lowest acceptable
Tij is the OD from the ith community to the jth community in
level of service and the biggest allowable traffic load
goal year.
affection degree of sections and intersections under
Traffic assignment is to distribute OD in the traffic
network, resulting traffic volume in various sections of the different levels of background traffic services is shown in
road network to determine the transport load level of the table 2.
section. Traffic assignment method can be divided into Table2. Biggest allowable traffic load affection degree of
balance and non-equilibrium models. But in practice,
sections and intersections under different backgrounds
generally use incremental overlay method, which is
simpler. It means superimposing project produce and The biggest
service affection the lowest allowable traffic
absorbed traffic over the backgrounds traffic to obtain
of background acceptable level
project traffic. load affection degree
A C 0.35
2.3 Traffic impact evaluation
B D 0.35
Traffic impact evaluation consists of two main areas: first,
the quantitative evaluation of the traffic impacts degree on C D 0.15

3924 2012 24th Chinese Control and Decision Conference (CCDC)

 D E 0.15 Fuhe Street 50 3 50
E F 0.10 Fudong Street 50 3 50
F F 0.10 East Ring Road 50 3 60
Congtai Road 40 1 30
Analysis and study evaluation index of traffic around after Sub Lingyuan Road 40 1 30
the completion of the project, and compare it, mainly Road Pace Road 30 1 30
capacity comparison, to the traffic situation around project
East willow Road 40 1 30
construction before. If the impact on traffic around the
environment exceeds the capacity of road network traffic, North Congtai Road 30 1 20
Spur
you should propose appropriate measures to improve the Guangsha Road 20 1 30
Track
adjustment or road network. Generally, in order to increase Guangan Road 20 1 30
the traffic capacity of road network traffic around the
Tongda Street 20 1 20
project, we usually adjust the section type of the roads, others
adjust the key crossings and deepen the research on the Osier bed Street 30 1 30
traffic organization plan first. If after the external
adjustment of the roads, it still unable to meet the needs of Taking the impact of project construction on the
project construction, we must adjust the project itself to surrounding road network and the status of the surrounding
reduce the impact of urban road network. road network into account, determine construction projects
from Donghuan Road to Renmin Road, Pace Road to
3 TRAFFIC IMPACT ANALYSIS Donghuan Road, Renmin Road to East Ring Street
Used the methods discussed above, there is an example of (planning),as the analysis focus[8].
Chuangxin Sun City in Handan for traffic impact analysis Chuangxin sunshine IV project is expected to be completed
below: in late 2011, taking the completion of the project to put into
use needs a certain amount of time into account, so set 2014
3.1 Project background analysis as the target year.
The physical characteristics of the road network The research scope of the project is shown as: From Fudong
surrounding the affected area is shown in table 3. North Street to East Ring Road and from Lianfang Road to
Table3. physic characteristic of roads around involved area Pace Road.
red line section design 3.2 Traffic forecasts
grade Name of roads Width form speed
(m) (board) (km/h) The generation and attract of each zone in goal year without
project is calculated based on the above method. The traffic
Arterial Liangfang Road 45 3 40
peak-hour traffic in target year in the community and trip
Road Renmin Road 60 3 40 attraction is shown in table 4, which is at last of this page.
Table4 Generation and attract of each zone in goal year without project(pcu/h)
Current situation Growth rate 2014
Zone Number
Generation Attraction Generation Attraction Generation Attraction
1 1080 1071 0.2 0.15 2239 1873
2 106 106 0.1 0.1 155 155
3 354 290 0.2 0.15 734 507
4 411 411 0.08 0.05 559 500
5 1109 1031 0.1 0.08 1624 1403
6 1028 1153 0.2 0.1 2132 1688
7 199 194 0.3 0.3 568 554
8 594 587 0.2 0.1 1232 859
9 488 389 0.15 0.15 854 680
10 309 333 0.1 0.08 452 453
11 969 799 0.1 0.05 1419 971
12 1900 2024 0.1 0.1 2782 2963
13 1050 992 0.08 0.05 1429 1206
14 427 499 0.12 0.06 672 630
15 236 194 0.08 0.05 321 236
16 72 75 0.03 0.02 81 81
17 1706 1483 0.1 0.08 2498 2018

2012 24th Chinese Control and Decision Conference (CCDC) 3925

 18 393 269 0.07 0.05 515 327
19 1682 1726 0.13 0.05 2742 2098
20 387 371 0.08 0.06 527 468
21 1176 1419 0.1 0.08 1722 1931
22 1675 1544 0.1 0.08 2452 2101
23 577 585 0.08 0.06 785 739
24 391 448 0.05 0.06 475 566
25 1646 2019 0.2 0.2 3413 4187
Sum 19965 20012 32382 29192
Depending on the zone structure of different types, there
will be a huge development in Handan city in 2014.
Putting construction area and attractive rate into the above
formula, proposed project can be calculated by the
peak-hour travel volume of production and attract, which is
shown in table 5.
Table5.Peak hour generation and attraction of each
function division in goal year with the project(pcu/h)
Incidence/ Generation Attraction
Function Acreage
attract rate number number
Residence 7094.26 0.065 461 461
Commerce 21742.3 0.2 4348 4348
Office 1854 0.075 139 139
Sum —— —— 4948 4948 Fig 2. Result of balance (pcu/h)
Based on the above analysis of the two plans, the use of this
3.3 Traffic distribution methodology to the project after completion of the traffic
Putting the projects’ attracting into the traffic background flow distribution, there is little change compared to
can we get the district attract peak hour volume in the target previous projects, which indicates that this method will be a
year. good distribution of traffic generated for the project that can
Using the Fratar model and Trans CAD software to forecast reducing the pressure on the surrounding traffic.
the community traffic distribution with the project, at first, This is the comparison of the generation and the attraction.
we need to balance the attraction of the peak hour volume Through the summaries of several crossings’ traffic which
of the target year projects, the results is shown in Fig 1. approach the target years’ project, can we get the traffic
volume of peak hour at key crossings before and after the
completion of the project, and then calculate the traffic load
as shown in table 6.

Fig 1.Result of balance (pcu/h)

Using the balanced output and absorbed volume for traffic
distribution, the results is shown in Fig 2. Fig 3.Comparison of the generation

3926 2012 24th Chinese Control and Decision Conference (CCDC)

 holidays or shopping events. So we can build temporary
parking space in the square to meet the parking demand
which prohibits parking during the day.
4 Conclusion
The innovative contribution of this paper is the two
applications. Firstly, it proposed a systematic method on a
construction project traffic impact assessment. The
application of this method is more convenient. It can
evaluate most construction projects exactly and put forward
a better traffic flow distribution solutions which can make
sure the balance of the project won’t be destroyed. In the
practical application of this method, it gets good results.
Fig 4.comparison of the attraction Therefore, our method could be widely used practically.
Secondly, based on the simulation technology, the plan
Table 6. peak hour traffic flow and key crossings contrast before putted forward becomes more constructive.
and after the completion ˄pcu/h˅
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