Decongestion of Nairobi-Thika Highway-Outer Ring Road “Gsu” Intersection Using Microsimulation and Geometric Modeling

Ochungo Akech Elisha^1,

¹Institute for Climate Change & Adaptation, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya

Cite this paper

Ochungo Akech Elisha. Decongestion of Nairobi-Thika Highway-Outer Ring Road “Gsu” Intersection Using Microsimulation and Geometric Modeling. American Journal of Water Resources. 2020; 8(2):48-55. doi: 10.12691/AJWR-8-2-1

Abstract

A lot of studies have been done to decongest urban road networks especially at major intersections mainly to improve flow efficiency and capacity. Both simulation and computer aided geometric modeling techniques have facilitated these investigations, but little has been done to document the steps leading to the selection of the most optimized architectural configuration of the interchange for implementation. This paper presents the explanation of the steps followed during the decongestion design process of the “GSU” interchange located at the intersection of Nairobi-Thika Super Highway and the newly improved Outer Ring Road (ORR); two key arterial road corridors in Nairobi city, Kenya. The new “GSU” interchange design deployed both micro-simulation modeling using Parallel Microscopic Simulation Software (PARAMICS) and AutoCAD Civil 3D geometric modeling techniques. Using excerpts from the traffic engineering expert’s micro-simulation work together with the design report prepared by the ORR improvement supervision consultant’s team, this paper outlines the workflow steps that led to the final choice of the interchange configuration’s shape and form. The finding of this paper demonstrates the efficacy of the use of micro-simulation models in supporting CAD geometric remodeling of existing intersections for enhanced capacity and flow. The process involving the integration of simulation and geometric modeling is rather complex in nature as it requires team members to exercise patience with each other. This paper recommends that urban road authorities should have a dedicated traffic flow simulation team to work closely with road design engineers in city road network decongestion plans.

Keywords

decongestion, geometric, modeling

Copyright

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

References

[1]	Smeed, R. J. (1966). Road Capacity of City Centers. Traffic Engineering and Control, Vol. 8, No. 7.
[2]	Drew, D.R. (1968) .Traffic flow theory and control. New York: McGraw-Hill.
[3]	Bing, X., Wei, Q., Lu, J., Li, C., and Zhang, Y. (2018). Sustainable Highway Design: Disentangling the Effects of Geometric-Related and Traffic-Related Factors on Urban Highway Traffic Emissions. Advances in Civil Engineering, 2018, 1-10.
[4]	Sun, J., Li, T., Li, F., and Chen, F. (2016). Analysis of safety factors for urban expressways considering the effect of congestion in Shanghai, China. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 95, 503-511.
[5]	Bull, A. (2003) Traffic congestion: The problem and how to deal with it. Santiago, Chile, United Nations, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.
[6]	Arnott, Richard, and Kenneth Small (1994).The economics of traffic congestion. American Scientist, 82(5) 446-455
[7]	Schrank, D., and T. Lomax (2009).The 2009 Urban Mobility Report. Research report, Texas Transportation Institute, Texas A&M University System.
[8]	Cardno, Catherine A.(2015). Can traffic congestion be fixed? The magazine of the American Society of Civil Engineers. https://www.asce.org/magazine/20150929-can-traffic-congestion-be-fixed-/
[9]	Attri, Navjot (2016). Estimating the cost of traffic congestion in Nairobi (Langata) to the Kenyan economy. BSc degree in Actuarial Science - thesis report for at Strathmore University.
[10]	Kinai, A., Bryant, R. E., Walcott-Bryant, A., Mibuari, E., Weldemariam, K., & Stewart, O. (2014). Twende-twende: a mobile application for traffic congestion awareness and routing. Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Mobile Software Engineering and Systems - MOBILESoft 2014.
[11]	Gachanja, J. N. (2011). Evaluating the Impact of Road Traffic Congestion Mitigation Measures Nairobi Metropolitan Region. KIPPRA Discussion paper No. 128, Nairobi: Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis
[12]	Fraser, M. S., Wachira, B. W., Flaxman, A. D., Lee, A. Y., & Duber, H. C. (2020). Impact of traffic, poverty and facility ownership on travel time to emergency care in Nairobi, Kenya. African Journal of Emergency Medicine.
[13]	Keya,Alex (2015). Mitigating transport congestion in Nairobi. Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA). Jan 2015.
[14]	Korir, Wilfred Kipng'eno (1986). A study of vehicular traffic congestion if in Nairobi. A thesis degree of Master of Arts (planning) in the University of Nairobi.
[15]	GoK, (2018). Consultancy services for the Design, Tender Documentation and Implementation Supervision of an Intelligent Transport System (ITS) and Associated Civil Engineering Works for NairobiCounty.http://www.ksp.go.kr/resources/contents/Support% 20for%20Implementing%20Intelligent%20Traffic%20Systems%20in%20Nairobi%20%20Metropoli.pdf
[16]	Temu, Clive Kiage (2012). The Study of Pavement Design of Nairobi-Thika Highway.Masters Degree Thesis-University of Nairobi.
[17]	Santani et al., (2015). CommuniSense: Crowdsourcing road hazards in Nairobi.In Proc. 17th Int. Conf. Human-Comput. Interaction Mobile Dev. Services, Copenhagen, Denmark, Aug. 24-27, 2015, pp. 1-12.
[18]	Uber, (2019). Uber thinks its data can help solve Nairobi's epic traffic jams. https://www.africanbusinesscentral.com/2019/06/28/uber-thinks-its-data-can-help-solve-nairobis-epic-traffic-jams/
[19]	African Development Fund (AfDB), (2013). Project appraisal report for Nairobi Outer Ring Road improvement. file:///c:/users/user/downloads/kenya_-_nairobi_outer_ring_road_improvem.pdf
[20]	Okoth, Edwin (2019). New interchange to ease Outer Ring traffic jams. Daily Nation, February 6th, 2019. https://www.nation.co.ke/business/New-interchange-to-ease-Outer-Ring-traffic-jams/996-4968622-11k3d5n/index.html
[21]	Asirvatham et al., (2018). Smart Mobility Cities: Connecting Bristol and Kuala Lumpur project report. Project Report. University of the West of England, Bristol, UK. Available from: http://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/37667
[22]	Brohi, S.N.; Pillai, T.R.; Asirvatham, D.; Ludlow, D.; Bushell, J. (2018). Towards smart cities development: A study of public transport system and traffic-related air pollutants in Malaysia. IOP Conf. Ser. Earth Environ. Sci. 2018, 167, 12015
[23]	Peters, A., von Klot, S., Heier, M., Trentinaglia, I., Hörmann, A., Wichmann, H. E., & Löwel, H. (2004). Exposure to Traffic and the Onset of Myocardial Infarction. New England Journal of Medicine, 351(17), 1721-1730.
[24]	Md Diah, J., Abdul Rahman, M. Y., Adnan, M. A., and Atan, I. (2010). Weaving Section Flow Model at the Weaving Area of Malaysian Conventional Roundabout. Journal of Transportation Engineering, 136(8), 782-792.
[25]	Dewees, D. N. (1979). Estimating the Time Costs of Highway Congestion. Econometrica, 47(6), 1499.
[26]	Tanner, J. C. (1962). A Theoretical Analysis of Delays at an Uncontrolled Intersection. Biometrika, 49(1/2), 163.
[27]	Suh, W., Kim, J. I., Kim, H., Ko, J., and Lee, Y.-J. (2018). Mathematical Analysis for Roundabout Capacity. Mathematical Problems in Engineering, 2018, 1-8.
[28]	Speirs, J. (2019). Safe, Attractive, and Sustainable Cities: A mobility- oriented approach. IGLUS (Innovative Governance of Large Urban Systems).
[29]	Papageorgiou, G. N. (2006). Towards a microscopic simulation model for traffic management: a computer-based approach. IFAC Proceedings Volumes, 39(12), 403-411.
[30]	Doniec,A. et al.,(2008). A behavioral multi-agent model for road traffic simulation. Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, 21, pp. 1443-1454, 2008.
[31]	Wang, S., Hagan, P. C., & Cao, C. (2016). Tunnel Engineering. Advances in Rock-Support and Geotechnical Engineering, 217-279.
[32]	Williams, J. C., 1997. Macroscopic flow models. in Traffic flow theory, N. Gartner, C.J. Messer and A.K. Rathi (Eds.). Oak Ridge National Laboratory, chapter 6.
[33]	Akçelik, R. (1989). On the estimation of lane flows for intersection analysis. Australian Road Research 19 (1), pp. 51-57.
[34]	Akçelik, R., and Besley M. (2001). Microsimulation and analytical methods for modelling urban traffic. Paper presented at the Conference on Advance Modeling Techniques and Quality of Service in Highway Capacity Analysis, Truckee, California, USA, July 2001.
[35]	Oketch T and Carrick, M 2005, Calibration and Validation of a Micro-Simulation Model in Network Analysis. Presented at 84th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board. Washington, D.C., January 2005.
[36]	Yue, R., Yang, G., Tian, Z., Xu, H., Lin, D., Wang A. (2019) Microsimulation Analysis of Traffic Operations at Two Diamond Interchange Types, Journal of Advanced Transportation, 2019, pp.1- 11, https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/6863480
[37]	Salter R.J. (1996) Grade-separated junctions and interchanges. In: Highway Traffic Analysis and Design. Palgrave, London.
[38]	Smith M. J. and Garber N. J. (1998). Guidelines for selecting single point urban and diamond interchanges. Nationwide survey and literature review,” Transportation Research Record, no. 1612, pp. 48-54, 1998
[39]	Daganzo, C. F. (1994). The cell transmission model: a dynamic representation of highway traffic consistent with the hydrodynamic theory. Transportation Research Part B, vol. 28, no. 4, pp. 269-287, 1994
[40]	Munoz, L., Xiaotian Sun, Horowitz, R., & Alvarez, L. (2003). Traffic density estimation with the cell transmission model. Proceedings of the 2003 American Control Conference, 2003.
[41]	Kang, M.-W., Shariat, S., & Jha, M. K. (2013). New highway geometric design methods for minimizing vehicular fuel consumption and improving safety. Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, 31, 99-111.
[42]	Raji, S.A. Zava, A. ,Jirgba, K. and Osunkunle, A.B.(2017).Geometric Design of a Highway Using AutoCAD Civil 3D.Journal of Multidisciplinary Engineering Science and Technology (JMEST), Volume 4, Issue 6, June 2017.
[43]	Nisarga, K., and Amate, V. (2018). “Geometric design of rural road using AutoCAD civil 3d”, IJSDR, Vol.05, Issue 07
[44]	Ananya, and E. Sahimol, (2016). 3D Model for Highway Alignment. International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Research (IJSER), Volume 4, Issue 3, March 2016.
[45]	Koji Makanae, (2014). Optimization of Highway Geometric Design Process for Computer-based Design”, American Society of Civil Engineer, pp.13766-1383., 2014.
[46]	Liao, C.-F., and Levinson, D. M. (2013). ROAD: Interactive Geometric Design Tool for Transportation Education and Training. Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice, 139(2), 116-122.
[47]	Nazimuddim, M., and Faheem, M., Aquil., (2017). Geometric Design of a Highway Using MXROAD.IJERIA, Vol.10, 25-34.
[48]	Loder, A., Ambühl, L., Menendez, M. et al. (2019). Understanding traffic capacity of urban networks. Sci Rep 9, 16283 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-51539-5
[49]	Fan, S., and Lin, L. (2011). A Traffic Capacity Improvement Example of Urban Road Intersection. ICTE 2011.
[50]	Klibavičius, A., & Paliulis, G. M. (2012). Increasing the capacity of intersections by short traffic lanes. transport, 27(1), 67-72.
[51]	Chodur, J., Ostrowski, K., & Tracz, M. (2016). Variability of Capacity and Traffic Performance at Urban and Rural Signalised Intersections. Transportation Research Procedia, 15, 87-99.
[52]	Alessandrini, D. Stam, (2017). ARTS—automated road transport systems, in: Implementing Automated Road Transport Systems in Urban Settings, Elsevier, 2017
[53]	Zegeer, J. D., Blogg, M., Nguyen, K., and Vandehey, M. (2008). Default values for highway capacity and level-of-service analyses. Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2071, 35-43
[54]	Oketch Timothy (2001). A Model for Heterogenous Traffic Flows Including Non-Motorized Vehicles, Ph.D. Dissertation, Institute of Traffic Studies, University of Karlsruhe, Germany
[55]	AASHO (1965). A Policy on geometric design of rural highways. American Association of State Highway Officials, Washington
[56]	Passos, L. , Rossetti, R. and Kokkinogenis, Z. (2011). Towards the nextgeneration traffic simulation tools: a first appraisal.In Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI), 2011 6th Iberian Conference on, June 2011, pp. 1-6.
[57]	Quadstone Limited (2002).PARAMICS V3.0 Installation Guide. http://www.paramics- online.com/tech_support/customer/cust_doc.htm.
[58]	Bertini, R.L., Lindgren, R., Tantiyanugulchai, S (2002). Application of paramics simulation: at a diamond interchange. Technical report, Oregon Department of Transportation, Portland (2002)
[59]	CES/APEC, (2007). Feasibility Study and Detailed Engineering Design of Nairobi-Thika Road. Draft Final Feasibility Report. June, 2007
[60]	Mandal, Manoj, Prashant Pawade, Prashant Sandel. (2019). Geometric design of highway using Civil 3D. International Journal of Advance Research, Ideas and Innovations in Technology, Volume 5, Issue 3, April 2019.
[61]	Holland, Louisa. (2014). Mastering AutoCAD Civil 3D 2014. Wiley. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/32469110/Mastering_AutoCAD_Civil_3D
[62]	Bonilla C, Urbanik T (1987) Increased capacity of highways and arterials through the use of flyovers and grade separated rampsarterial flyovers. Research report 376-1, Texas Transportation Institute, Texas A&M University, College Station, Jun 1987