The current assessment aims to provide the directors of the project, the concessionaire Aleática, with a traffic assessment detailing the current flow of traffic in the area of the San Antonio toll (North Urban Highway), as well as in its immediate surroundings, analysing the capacity and service level of the road, as well as proposing measures that guarantee a better flow of circulation considering the current congestion during the AM and PM peak hours of demand.
Approved by the study management, the methodology suggested to carry it out involved two distinct consecutive parts. The first part involved collecting the traffic data in the area under study, and building and calibrating the digital traffic model in a microscopic environment. The second part used the basis of the previous model to assess the potential improvements.
The following tasks were completed to prepare this report:
- Gathering existing data of the traffic demand on the roads of the area and the traffic
counts
- Installing 6 artificial vision cameras
- Drone flight during AM and PM peak hours in the surroundings of the San Antonio toll.
- Automatic traffic counting with artificial vision software from field recordings of vehicles made to know traffic flow distribution in the area of the San Antonio toll.
- Recording route videos with geo-referencing on-board cameras from different origins in AM and PM peak hours.
- Analysing the Level of Service of the roads of the area following the methodology of the Highway Capacity Manual.
- Future traffic assignment assessment based on traffic microsimulation techniques. In order to achieve this, a digital model of the area was created where the measured traffic demand was assigned with precision in the on-site traffic survey phase.
- Assessing the intersections in and accesses to the area of the toll, since these are the critical points for interrupted flow of traffic such as the one under study, using the methodology of the Highway Capacity Manual based on microsimulation techniques.