An economic evaluation of malabe intersection due to vehicle and pedestrian interruption

Abstract

Malabe is a suburb city located on one of the major corridor of road transportation into the Colombo city center. Malabe is the entrance to the Colombo across New Kandy road, Battaramulla, Rajagiriya, Borella, Kollupitiya towards Colombo. It is noticed that the pedestrian interruption with the vehicle flow from each direction of Malabe intersection generate a considerable delay to the vehicle users. This interruption generates traffic queues and even cause blocking of the vehicle at the intersection. The efficiency and the performance of the intersection have become very low, especially in the peak hours. The objective of this study is to quantify the delay of vehicle users through an economic evaluation. The delay will be evaluated in terms of additional vehicle operational cost and the additional travel time. Speed variation of vehicles due to the interruption with pedestrians have been analyzed over the 3 road segments intersect at the Malabe Junction. Kaduwela road, Athurugiriya road and Battaramulla road are specifically observed for the total number of vehicles and pedestrians crossing alone the pedestrian crossings. Simultaneously, the speed variation of the vehicles is analyzed to check the additional travel time and to quantify additional vehicle operational cost due to delay. New Zealand Guidelines for transportation were used in this study as the indices have not been developed for the developing countries like Sri Lanka.