Estimation of vehicle kilometers travelled in southern province, Sri Lanka

Abstract

Estimation of vehicle kilometers travelled (VKT) is used in traffic and transport planning for various purposes such estimating the emissions, estimating energy consumption, analyzing crashes, assessing traffic impact, and making road safety policy. Therefore, it is crucial to have an accurate timely estimation of VKT. Both traffic and non-traffic measurement methods are popular among the transport planners and researchers. Very few studies have conducted in Sri Lanka for estimating the VKT. This study proposes to estimate the VKT based on the number of household daily trips, which are collected through the interviews. The interviewer records the mode of travel, total number of kilometer travelled, and number of passengers. The socio-demographic information is also collected and this includes age, gender, employment status, income and residential area. The estimation of total VKT are derived from survey respondents' total number of kilometers each travelled during the previous 12 months in Southern Province, Sri Lanka. The collected data are also used to estimate the personal kilometer travelled and characteristics of travelers in Southern Province.