EVALUATION OF THE EFFECTS OF ON-STREET PARKING OF VEHICLES ON TRAVEL SPEED

Abstract

On-street parking refers to the parking of vehicles on the street, anywhere on or along the curb or shoulder of a street or road. On-street parking is a common problem everywhere in the world. At present, one of the most challenging phenomena in Shashamane town is traffic congestion, which is a result of the high number of on-street parking vehicles. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effects of on-street parking on travel speed by developing multiple linear regression model. Two road sections (Bale-exit and Shewabar) that had on-street parking as the main hindrance of travel speed ware selected. Several traffic characteristics and Parameters were then investigated and counted through manual data collection method, for the purpose of obtaining clear relationships between on-street parking and travel speeds. Traffic data collected; were average speed of vehicles, volume of vehicles, number of pedestrian crossings, and number of parked and stopped vehicles, and effective road width. These data are recorded for 12 hours in a day at each road section, covering both peak and non-peak hours with an interval of 15- minute duration. All the surveys at each location are carried out at the same time so as to fulfill the objective of developing relationships between different parameters. Multiple linear regression model was developed to analyze the variation of travel speed for varying traffic volume, number of passenger crossing, the number of parking vehicles, and road width. The result showed that the effective Road width and parking volume have a significant impact on the speed of vehicles along the both road sections. Along Shewabar road section the average speed of vehicles decreased by 3.091km/hr for every 1 meter decreased in the effective road width and decreased by 0.119km/hr for one vehicle increased by the number of stopped and parked vehicles. Along Bale-exit road section only 32.2% from total carriage width of 14m have been used by moving vehicles as an effective road width and the rest 67.8% was occupied by on-street parking vehicles. This decreased travel speed of vehicles by 22.686 km/hr.