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Urban Planning and Safe Transport Systems

Geetam TiwariDepartment of Civil Engineering &

Transportation Research and Injury Prevention Program (TRIPP)Indian Institute of Technology Delhi(IITD)

New Delhi, India

How can urban planning influence traffic safety?

Interaction at three levels:

Landuse planning(travel mode choice &trip distances) Urban design( built environment-blocks, density-travel

mode choice)Transport infrastructure(roads, PT, mode choice, risk to

captive users)

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Low density single use development Sprawl

Long trips

Higher

share of car

trips

Higher

share of

motorised

trips

Traffic risk and urban sprawl

Authors Main Findings

(Lovegrove and

Sayed 2007)

Related number of crashes to amount of travel within

geographic unit

(Galster et al. 2001) Accounted for multifaceted nature of design and

density and their relationship to sprawl.

(Ewing et al. 2003) Created a sprawl index and examined the relationship

between this index and traffic crashes. The main

findings include sprawling areas that are associated

with more traffic and pedestrian fatalities.

(Trowbridge et al.

2009;Trowbridge

and McDonald 2008)

Constructed sprawl indices to show that sprawl is

associated with more teen driving and longer

ambulance arrival times. In both papers the authors

conclude that sprawl can lead to more traffic fatalities.

(Lambert and Meyer

2006;Lucy 2003)

Used another index of sprawl and found that sprawl is

associated with more crashes.

Table 1

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Landuse policy can influence the following dimensions to influence urban traffic safety

• Density : policy that increases or maintains the population density

• Structure : policies that favour the concentration of employment and retail activity

• Diversity: traditional separation of landuses

• Local Design: Cities can encourage short car trips by good design of local facilities for nonmotorized transport

Where people live

Mature cities : high rise density

Growing cities low rise densities

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How people travelCar share remains high in HIC: Newyork, London

Despite extensive PT network

LA cities PT dominates, NMV negligible

Asian cities( growing cities) :NMV and walking dominates

Urban Density and traffic risk

• Dense urban areas are safer than lower density suburban environments. This is because per capita lower vehicle kilometers are travelled in denser areas at lower speed as compared to low density sub urban environments.

• Development with lower vehicle mile travelled is likely to have lower crash rate. This is related to density, diversity, design, and destination.

• Density in urban areas and design treatments like narrower streets, street trees, and traffic calming measures appear to enhance a roadway safety.

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What is Transport Planning?

• Spatial and temporal spread of activities; where we live, work, how long we travel

• Travel demand estimation and design of facilities to meet the present and future demand; how do we travel

• Long range plans for multi-modal transportation systems; roads, metro, bus system, bicycle and pedestrian facilities

Travel demand model

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Existing Landuse (2001)/

future landuse

PLOT MATRIX: MF35: TWBSFH

MATRIX BY O/D PAIRS

04-05-17 23:13

MODULE: 3.13

SPAFOUND....kp

EMME/2 PROJECT: kp

SCENARIO : 5 kp

MATRIX : mf35 twbsfh 0

WINDOW:

541.18/5346.11

4675.2/8446.62

SCALE: 1000

PLOT MATRIX:

mf35: twbsfh

LINKS: all

CONSTRAINT: mf35: twbsfhLOWER: 0UPPER: 5EXCLUDE

2000

DESIRE LINES FOR

BASE YEAR: TWO

WHEELER TRIPS

(PCU)

4000

6000

8000

10000

Volume Scale (PCU)

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Infrastructure Improvement

8 Bridges Across River Sabarmati (3

Proposed)

8 Underpass/ flyovers (11 proposed)

Problem AnalysisSolution??

• Analysis in terms of PCU (NMV, pedestrians ignored)

• Focus on inter zonal trips, short intra zonal trips ignored

• Focus on travel time(speed)

• Conventional method designed to promote

personal motorised trips

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Planning for safe Urban transport: a multi sector task

City systems

Landuse plans

Transportation System

Infrastructure

Technology

outcome Flows

Congestion

Pollution

Accidents

Conflict between safety and mobility

• Higher level of service implies higher speeds-i.e. higher probability of fatality

0

20

40

60

80

100

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Impact speed km/h

Probability of

pedestrian

fatalityPercent

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Share of bicyclist in fatal crashes is less than the share of trips by bicycles, pedestrians and MTW are higher (Selected cities, IATSS report, 2015)

0.0

10.0

20.0

30.0

40.0

50.0

Walk Bicycle MTW Car IPT PTAmritsar(mode share) Crash victims

0

10

20

30

40

50

Walk Bicycle MTW Car IPT PT

Vadodara(mode share) Crash victims

0

10

20

30

40

50

Walk Bicycle MTW Car IPT PTVizag(mode share) Crash victims

SHARED

SPACE?

Share of bicyclist in fatal crashes is less than the share of trips by bicycles, pedestrians and MTW are higher

(Selected cities, IATSS report, 2015)

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

Walk Bicycle MTW Car IPT PT

Vadodara(mode share)

0

10

20

30

40

50

Walk Bicycle MTW Car IPT PT

Agra(mode share)

Crash victims

0

10

20

30

40

Walk Bicycle MTW Car IPT PT

Ludhiana(mode share)

Crash victims

SHARED

SPACE?

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,Bulandshahr . Patiala

Bulandshaher

Transport Market & Latent Demand

• Changing demand

Volume/ Demand

s

er

vi

c

e

V1 V2

T1

T2

Investment in car infrastructure leads to higher

speeds(short term), increased accidents, more cars,

congestion!!!

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Traffic Congestion Is Slowly Strangling Our Cities; Solutions Must Be Found(2017)

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Traffic jam soon to become history;

travelling on ropeway to start in

Kolkata

Court asks for a vehicle free day in

Mumbai

Delhi Traffic at night

Major recommendations• Increase density, diversity, destinations and design in urban

environments. It is expected that this promotes narrower, shorter, more enclosed and interconnected streets leading to safer travels.

• Density is measured by number of people, households or jobs per unit area(acre or km2) ,

• diversity refers to mixing of commercial, residential and industrial areas.

• involves street typology of a community which can vary from straight interconnected streets to loops of curvilinear streets. Design also involves sidewalks, pedestrian crossings road side trees.

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Co existence of formal and informal settlements : Necessity of access to employment!

Contiguous development of low-density, high income and high-density, low-income colonies (enclosed within red boundary) in southern part of Delhi

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Characteristics of Informal settlements

• Self organized, organic growth, outside the formal process

• Lack of formal services(water, sewage, electricity)

• Poor quality housing

Density, Diversity, human scale

Location(access to employment)

Landuse –transport integration for ‘unplanned’ sector implies:

• Density : High rise buildings vs small houses (12-18sqm)

• Structure :Monocentric/polycentric vs street vendors

• Diversity:mixed landuse vs informal markets

• Local Design: short car trips vs walking/bicycling trips

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Cities within cities

Converting walking

trips tp motorised

trips- buses, RTVs,

LCVs

Long cycling trips

Time poverty of

women increases

Opportunity for

“self employed”

business reduces

Large numer of people relocated for metro

and other development projects

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Planned landuse has lead to ~40,000 households relocation in 4 years

Site

Numbe

r

No. of

Househ

olds

Distanc

e from

original

site

1 8000 8 km

2 4000 7 km

3 5000 18 km

4 3000 10 km

5 2300 12 km

6 50 5 km

7 500 18 km

8 5500 23 km

9 4500 20 km

10 1000 15 km

11 4000 18 km

12 50 8 km

13 65 35 km

14 20 40 km

15 1200 25 km

Distance to main road after relocation

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Site Numbers

Dis

tan

ce (

mts

)

Original

Relocated

Distance to bus-stop after relocation

0

250

500

750

1000

1250

1500

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Site Numbers

Dis

tan

ce (

mts

)

Original

Relocated

•Rehabilitation of slums results in converting nmv trips to mv trips

• avg. distance to main road

before relocation< .5 km.

•avg. distance to main road after

relocation>2 kmn

•Avg. distance to bus stop 200

m before relocation

•Avg. distance to bus stop 1

km after relocation

•Minimum distance to bus stop

before 10m, after 1km

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Location of informal settlements

Informal settlements relocated by planners in Delhi 2001-2006 15-20 kms

away from the original location

self planned -

expert planned-

Captive and potential NMV users

Low income households (slums/ JJ colonies, LIG Colonies, urban villages)

• 10% - 50% households in Indian cities with Household income 100-180 USD/month

• Motorized public transport (bus)- not an affordable option

CAPTIVE RIDER GROUP

School and College students

High density (planned and unplanned)

And mixed land use – Short Trip Maker• High ownership of bicycle, low car ownership

POTENTIAL RIDER GROUP

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Impact on safety• The probability of a specific threat-victim crash = total “at-risk” kms travelled by

road users in the victim’s travel mode (Uvictim× dvictim) X total distance travelled by the vehicles that pose the threat (Mthreat× dthreat).

• The mobility indicators for travel to work – distance, time and cost – have increased for 83%, 82% and 61% of the households respectively.

• The relocated households are travelling longer distances than before on arterial or national highways coming to the city. These roads do not have dedicated facilities for pedestrian, bicycles or buses.

• Aggregate data of fatal crash from 2001-2009 shows the increase in fatal crashes involving pedestrians and bicyclists

Planning for safe Urban transport: a multi sector task

City systems

Heterogeneity, Informal economy,

squatter settlements

Transportation System

Pedestrians,

Non motorised vehicles,

para transit

outcome Flows

Congestion

Pollution

Accidents

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Contrasting Approaches to Transport Planning

The Conventional Approach: Transport Planning and Engineering

Physical dimensions

Mobility

Traffic focus, particularly on the car

Large in scale

Street as a road

Motorised transport

Forecasting traffic

Modelling approaches

Economic evaluation

Travel as a derived demand

Demand based

Speeding up traffic

Travel time minimisation

An Alternative ApproachSustainable Mobility• Social dimensions• Accessibility

• People focus, either in (or on) a vehicle or on foot• Local in scale• Street as a space

• All modes of transport often in a hierarchy with pedestrian and cyclist at the top and car users at the bottom

• Visioning on cities• Scenario development and modelling

• Multicriteria analysis to take account of environmental and social concerns

• Travel as a valued activity as well as a derived demand• Management based

• Slowing movement down• Reasonable travel times and travel time reliability• Integration of people and traffic

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IIT Delhi 2007

Seoul

Restoration of Cheonggyecheon

Decrease of car-traffic volume : 125,000 veh/day

Before After(Sep. 2005)

Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs)

• Universal, integrated and transformative 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 associated targets.

• Sustainable transport has been included in 7 of the 17 goals and is covered directly by 5 targets and indirectly by 7 targets.

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Transport related issued in specific targets

• Target 3.6. By 2030, halve the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents.

• Target 7.3. By 2030, double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency.

• Target 9.1. Develop quality, reliable, sustainable, and resilient infrastructure, including regional and trans-border infrastructure, to support economic development and human well-being, with a focus on affordable and equitable access for all.

Patiala, Punjab Fountain Chowk Junction

PA

TIA

LA

A. Provided segregated area for the Vendors

D. Parking Bay for 4 wheelers

B. Median for dividing Road and slowing down/diverting

vehicular traffic

F. Parking Bay for 2 wheelers

G. Raised crossing for

the pedestrian crossing

E.TSR Parking Bay for Auto

rickshaws

C.TSR Parking Bay for Auto

rickshaws

Proposed

design

4&2 Wheelers parked and Vendors

are standing

Rajbaha Road ROW – 30 m

Two way, Divided Road

Patiala- Mall Road

ROW – 36mTwo way,

Divided RoadLower Mall Road

ROW – 24mTwo way,

Divided Road

Stadium Road ROW – 16-20m

Two way, Divided Road

Petrol Pump Area

Existing

Roundab

out

Existing

situation

Pilot corridor – key

map

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Street Design Guidelines – Sample Proposal 1

PA

TIA

LA

Lower Mall Road Patiala -

Existing

Lower Mall Road Patiala -

Proposed

Landuse-Transport integration for safe-sustainable cities

• Integrating diverse socio economic households in master plan

• Street designs and transport system to ensure current and potential walking and bicycling trips

• Lessons- indicators and methods from self organising cities.