TRF - 2018

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://192.248.9.226/handle/123/17955

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item: Conference-Abstract
Analysis of road accidents in “A9” roads in the Northern Province
(Department of Civil Engineering, University of Moratuwa., 2018-08) Munas, MMM; Bandara, JMSJ; Pasindu, HR
A9 (Kandy-Jaffna Highway) is the most popular road in Sri Lanka, and was opened for traffic after the renovation of the section from Vavuniya to Jaffna, in 2013. Even though several safety precautions have been provided, most number of accidents reported along the highway have occurred in the district of Jaffna, Kilinochchi and Vavuniya. Therefore, identifying locations that may lead to accidents, the cause for the accidents, and where majority of the accidents take place are essential, for immediate safety measures and improvements. The main research objectives are to identify accident prone locations, identify possible reasons for the accidents and calculate the accident rate based on vehicle travel kilometre. According to this research, fifteen most critical accident-prone locations were identified in the A9 road section from Vavuniya to Jaffna. Accident locations were grouped into the nearest 100m distance, and the fifteen most critical locations are 171+100km, 176+100km, 177+100km, 180+200km, 183+200km, 212+800km, 252+100km, 299+100km, 300+100km, 302+100km, 303+100km, 305+100km, 309+100km, 311+100km and 312+200km. Main causes of the accidents, as per the accident records, are the driving speed and the poor road environment(light condition). Driver fatigue also acted as a key factor for some accidents. Accidents that happened during day time were twice as higher than that of the night time in some locations while some were equal. However, this trend was the same in each section along the road. The highest accident rate that was around 1.31 x 10-6 veh km, was noted from Palai to Meesalai east section. Accident rates in each section have increased from year 2012 to 2014. When comparing A9 road section from Vavuniya to Jaffna with A9 road section from Kandy to Vavuniya with the same corridor geometry in 2014, A9 road section from Vavuniya to Jaffna shows a higher accident rate (0.68 x 10-6 per vehicle kilometre travelled) than other corridors (0.47 x 10-6 per vehicle kilometre travelled). In addition, fatality rate in A9 road section from Vavuniya to Jaffna has increased from 2012 to 2014, which is considerably a higher value than the fatality rates of road accidents in most of the other countries.
item: Conference-Abstract
Criteria based funds allocation system for Sabaragamuwa Provincial Road Network
(Department of Civil Engineering, University of Moratuwa., 2018-09) Panagoda, A; Bandara, JMSJ; Pasindu, HR
Sabaragamuwa Provincial Road Network (PRN) consists of 2625 km length of class C and D roads. Majority of the roads are interconnected through Road Development Authority (RDA) road network. Sabaragamuwa Provincial Council (SPC) usually expends 750 million Sri Lankan rupees (SLR) for routine maintenance work and another 2250 million SLR in the form of capital investments. Provincial ministry of roads usually select roads for maintenance and improvement works are done on a random basis and as requested by politicians or the community. On the other hand, well-constructed PRN is very important for the sustainable economic development of the country. PRN provides transport infrastructure facilities for agricultural products and agriculture based industries. Several Provincial roads provide access to tourist attractive places like as Adams peak, water falls etc. Population of the Sabaragamuwa province is approximately 2 million and nearly 800,000 people use PRN roads for transportation purposes. Some of the PR can be effectively used to reduce the traffic congestion in the main arterial roads. As far as highways are concerned, at least there should be two lanes to accommodate the two way traffic. According to the National Highway Act, all C class roads are considered as highways. Recent survey carried out by SPRDA reveals that twenty five percent of the C class road segments have a traffic flow greater than 1000 PCU per day. However, all C class roads are still single lane roads with a carriage way width of 3.0 m to 5.0 m. SPC has already invested nearly 50,000 million SLR for road works under the capital investment projects IRDP, JICA World bank and ADB etc. Present value of recurrent expenditure is also in the range of 20,000-25,000 million SLR. This gives a clear indication that after investment of 75,000 million SLR for the improvement and maintenance of provincial roads, desired targets could not be achieved. Technical feasibility reports were prepared for individual capital investment projects and there was not any master plan to improve the entire road network cost effectively. According to the general definition, C class roads serve as collectors and connector roads and D class roads serve as collector roads and distributors. This research paper deals with the fund allocation for the PRN under different conditions. Annual allocation starting from 100 million to 20000 million SLR will be considered for the analysis. C class roads will be classified in to six groups depending on the vehicle flow rate, beneficiaries served by the road segment, interconnectivity, and present condition of the road. Similarly D class roads will be classified in to five groups. Cost benefit curves will be prepared for each group by considering capital investment as an independent variable. Dynamic programing method will be used to work out the optimum fund allocation at various stages.
item: Conference-Abstract
Motorcycle accident and its severity analysis in Ampara District
(Department of Civil Engineering, University of Moratuwa., 2018-09) Mujahidh, AHM; Bandara, JMSJ; Pasindu, HR
Nearly 30% of the total traffic flow on most highways in Sri Lanka comprises of motorcycles. It is a popular mode of transport of middle income families, as well as the youth, due to the lower cost in transport and being readily available. In Ampara district, the motorcycle population keeps on increasing as the officers who works within and closer to the district, return home the same day. However, the rapid increase in motorcycles caused accidents and fatalities to increase as well. This caused motorcycle riders to be the most vulnerable road users on Sri Lankan roads as they are left unprotected in the case of a crash. The objective of this study is to identify the risk factors involved, and to investigate the rate of the usage of motorcycle helmets. The representative sample of the motorcycles was observed using the mobile observation method in rural roads and through periodical observation, carried on in national roads and the township area of Ampara district. The accident data were obtained from police headquarters and the Ampara divisional traffic police, while injury severity data were obtained from the base hospitals of Kalmunai & Akkaraipattu, general hospital-Ampara and Ashraff memorial hospital. In 2013 motorcycles were responsible for 33% of total accidents, by 2017 it had increased up to 45%. In Ampara district it increased up to 61% in 2017 from 54% in 2016. It can be observed that in Ampara district the cases and crashes related to motorcycle accidents keep on increasing as 31.95% was recorded in 2015 while in 2017 it had increased up to 32.15%. According to the observational data, the average helmet usage rate of the rider & pillion was 95% in national roads where they travel on A & B class roads thus proved they were more likely to wear safety helmets, on the other hand, the usage rate was 15% among riders and pillion in rural roads like C, D & E class roads. Children sitting on the tank with no helmets were observed. The riders & pillions engaged with the town area were observed with helmets in the rural area. As per the hospital data, it was revealed that around 70% of those admitted to the hospital were victims of motorcycle accidents, in which 45% were youngsters. The treatment days were averagely 265 patient-days and in which 75 cases were just admitted and treated within one day. One major limitation in the availability of accident data is that the police accident data does not provide sufficient information on pre-crash factors contributing to accidents. The study shows that young riders are at a great risk of meeting accidents. These provide useful insights to risk factors related to the safety of motorcycle users and effective countermeasures that could be implemented to reduce motorcycle related accidents.
item: Conference-Abstract
The study of aging characteristics of road marking material
(Department of Civil Engineering, University of Moratuwa., 2018-08) Ranawaka, RADMP; Bandara, JMSJ; Pasindu, HR
Road Safety is a major component of the highway sector, and it should be considered well in highway planning, designing, construction and maintenance. The visibility of road marking is essential for efficient traffic flow and road safety. There are complaints that road markings of many roads in Sri Lanka have poor visibility and no effective re-marking processes within a sufficient time period. The major reason for the poor visibility is the low reflection level of road markings. The performance of the road marking can be affected due to the embedment of glass beads, water on road way, driver’s eyesight, position, and quality of headlamps, and road surface debris. The adequate noticeable area of road marking, directly affects the visibility of road marking. This noticeable area of road marking decreases due to traffic with respect to time, after applying. It is necessary to repaint the road marking to improve safety to road users. There is no guideline or methodology available for road agencies in Sri Lanka to follow, when deciding the road marking and repainting period. It is difficult to manage funds, material stock, manpower and machinery in a most effective manner, without guidelines. The main objectives of this research are to understand the aging characteristics of road marking material with respect to traffic and other environmental parameters, identify the optimum frequency of time for repainting urban roads and introduce guidelines for the repainting of the road marking while integrating it as a program, to a road database in highway management tool, as a future implementation. Preliminary measurements will be taken on selected high volume traffic roads that have shown a considerable reduction of visibility with time due to traffic. Colombo - Galle –Habantota – Wallawaya road (A002, Rawatawatta ADT - 42711) and Colombo – Horana (B084, Werahera ADT - 40910) road can be considered as examples for roads. Galle road consists with newly painted road marking (2017) and old road marking (2014). It can be seen a considerable quantity noticeably fading within the period of 3 years. These noticeable area of road marking will be compared, with time periods, to many road sections. A relationship between the reduction of visibility and traffic, is to be developed based on these photo based measurements. It is a ranking method based on weightages given to a visible area of a photo view. Newly finished road marking photos with the best visible area will be 10 and it may decrease as per visibility of marking. By comparing many samples, the relationship between the visibility of marking and aging of marking, using these weightages, is tried to be established. It can be possible to identify the frequency of the repainting of road marking.
item: Conference-Abstract
Study of behaviour and impacts of on-street parking in Kandy Town
(Department of Civil Engineering, University of Moratuwa., 2018-08) Gopallawa, UA; Bandara, JMSJ; Pasindu, HR
Parking considered as one of the most important transport facilities in the urban area. The availability of parking, is related to the parking location, parking price, parking regulations and parking space available. In a city, parking spaces are required by residents, employees, visitors and the moving traffic. With the increase in car ownership, parking is becoming a serious problem in cities, especially in the historical cities which were not designed for automobiles. This creates a tremendous pressure on parking, resulting in an increase in the demand for on-street parking in major arterial roads. Even though, the local government and regulatory bodies have introduced various initiatives with a number of policies and solutions, for parking in the city, the problems still exist due to inadequate understanding about the root cause of the parking problem. For this study the historical city, Kandy, is taken as a case study, to analyse the major problem of on-street parking and to find out the root cause through the analysis of the behaviour, impact of the parking and the factors that influence drivers when parking. As part of the methodology, on-street and off-street parking data, together with traffic volume data were collected and analysed, to identify the relationship between the on-street and off-street parking with the traffic volume. Further, GIS tools combined with the statistical analysis were used to find the demand for the two types of parking, at the same time determining the on-street parking attraction area and average walking distance to the on street attractive area, from the off-street parking area. Results show that motorists tend to park their vehicles on street in the morning hours. Also, results represents that users are attracted to park on the street without parking their vehicles in an off street car park, to reduce the walking distance to their destination. In addition, impact of the on street parking of vehicles travel speed were analysed using a Google map related program, which calculates the travel time in pre-assigned road segments developed by the Planning Division, Road Development Authority. The data were analysed for three parking categories, based on the width of the road segments as narrow, medium and wide. The results show that a 10% rise in the on street parking caused the reduction of the speed of the traffic flow by 1Km/h and this is evident in all parking categories. This may be useful for policy makers to consider the role of on-street parking as part of their local area speed management strategies. The study also presents a discussion on the policies of parking regulations and possible solutions for parking, in the area the study was conducted. The study envisaged that this would provide a more logical framework that could be adopted in decision making, and finding suitable solutions for traffic problems in similar situations.

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Browsing TRF - 2018 by Author "Bandara, JMSJ"