Transport Assessment in Edinburgh - Case Study Example

Transport Assessment Edinburgh is one of the fastest growing cities in England and to meet the burgeoning transport demand is on the key priorities of the administration. All the development initiatives in the region of Edinburgh council must lie in tune with the councils broad objectives (Edinburgh, 2008). In addition to ensuring safer and comfortable roadways, maintaining proper environment for their living is also considered equally important. The transport planning in this region need to accommodate the requirement of different stakeholders. The car or private vehicle owners, public transpiration systems consisting of buses and trains, the cyclists and the pedestrians are the groups involved in transportation planning. Among the numerous initiatives that have begun, the most prominent ones are setting up of LTS, laying of high quality bus corridors connecting important places, real time information / bust tracker at 220 bus stops, planning of safer routes to schools, initiating new traffic management plan at city centre area (Edinburgh, 2008). Haymarket is a very busy area in the Edinburgh council. But inspite of the commercial importance it holds, it dont claim the importance of an efficient public space, a traffic hub or gate way to city centre area. The hypermarket area is surrounded by other major streets like Morrison Street, Diary road, Morrison link and Morrison Crescent and site and commercial centres like Exchange financial District and also huge residential complexes (Haymarket, n.d.). Present Transportation System The increase in the employment opportunities and creation of additional jobs have resulted in sharp increase in the residents that have resulted in increasing car ownership. Though the percentage of people who walk and cycle have fallen sharply across entire Scotland. But these rates have been held steady in Edinburgh council region, that includes Haymarket station , at 25 percent perhaps the highest figure in Scotland (Edinburgh, 2008). The introduction of bus priority lanes has helped to increase reliability and attract more passengers. This has resulted in the increase of nearly 25 percent of bus passengers from the figures reported in 1997 (Edinburgh, 2008). Car parking plan According to the parking standards for development control released by city of Edinburgh council, 1 space for 60 sq. m of gross floor area is provided. This is proposed considering the increase in the public transport facilities that could be implemented sooner. Further, an additional single space is exclusively provided to meet the parking need for disabled persons. Thus, the car parking facilities for an estimated number of nearly 150 units are provided, but as the tram networks get established with proper bus services in place this would reduce the volume of private transport considerable. And better utility of urban spaces can be achieved. Cycle parking The parking facilities for the cycles must be provided very close to the office complex. Also as per the city of Edinburgh standards the motorcycles require a parking space of 2m by 1m. As the proposed development is for office complexes, covered parking facility need to be provided with the locking arrangement. Funding Prospects Inorder to provide the support to this development of hypermarket regions appropriate interchange systems have been proposed. These are to be funded by the public sector. Further a joint private-public partnership is also expected to be keenly involved in this project due to the extensive commercial activity this would be able to generate (Haymarket, n.d.). The results of the user survey undertaken to gather information on the existing facilities showed that need for significant improvement in facilities as required by the people (Haymarket, n.d.). This would help to invite large volumes of private funds. The allocation of funds for transport development is carried out more at the local or regional level and hence support of South East Scotland Transport Partnership could be sought. Such a cooperation is expected to foster other transport development processes also like rail between Edinburgh and Glasgow, Cross Forth ferry services etc (Haymarket, n.d.). Details on Transport Assessment The transport assessment is the important task to be undertaken to have an idea on how transport pattern in Haymarket region would change due to the proposed development initiatives. Further, STAG guidelines based appraisal process has been made mandatory in any of the new development initiatives in this region. The STAG based appraisal would ultimately lead to most appropriate transport strategy, which would form the next level of analysis (The Scottish Government Publications , 2008). . The preliminary activity undertaken for this purpose was a series of site visits. The site visits undertaken was to understand various factors like locating the most easily accessible point from the site boundary. Better layout of buildings and locations of doors and entrance to site to determine the least time requirement and easy non-car based access. The very comfortable access for those persons with mobility problems from the nearest bus stops and railway lines was also considered. In addition, the possible ways to eliminate the conflicts between pedestrians, motorised vehicles and cycles was also in incorporated in detail (The Scottish Government Publications, 2008) The travel time studies on different modes like walking, cycling, public transport and car were also assessed very carefully. Based on the studies, the time bands for each mode of travel were framed and the maps were also appropriately prepared. The journey time reported in walking and cycling included the actual time the people take to reach this site by taking into account the factors like time required to cross roads or moving uphill (The Scottish Government Publications , 2008). The time taken by public transport was measured by the door-to-door travel time and a time band of up to 45 minutes was considered appropriate for this class of transport. The access by car and other personal travel modes are assessed based on the actual travel time spent in the vehicle, along with walking to vehicle, searching the parking space and time taken from the parked location to the office (The Scottish Government Publications , 2008). The volume of travel generated due to the new development initiative and the share of commuters by each mode were determined based on the number of people residing in each travel band and their most possible travel mode. The other compelling reasons like likelihood of shopping facilities or other requirement that might arise in future as part of Edinburgh council future plan also influences this result (The Scottish Government Publications, 2008). The analysis undertaken has also considered how the parking time for vehicles could be minimised significantly. As it is not possible to provide sufficient facilities to satisfy the demands of all times, over provisions on parking has been considered here too based on the 85th percentile in car trip rate assumptions. Since the development proposed covers a larger area , the impact of the traffic need to be assessed over an extended area. The traffic analysis is carried on the peak periods both in the morning and evening (The Scottish Government Publications , 2008).. The daily traffic information and traffic time profiles are required to identify the busy hours, to evaluate the bus and rail viability and also to understand the car parking accumulations over time (The Scottish Government Publications , 2008). Estimated Trip generation The estimation of trip generation rates gives a very probable estimate of the number of traffic modes generated or the people traveling to a particular location for a particular set of conditions. The conditions usually given are the gross floor area, employee nature, number of house holds etc (TRICS, n.d. a). Four different types of data sets are required for using TRICS tools for the transportation impact assessment. The site details, development details, parking details and survey day details are the information required for undertaking this process. The site details shall contain the site characteristics like location and geographical details, local environmental conditions and details about the existing public transport facilities. The development details shall include the operations planned, the employees ,and the work description. The parking details must clearly specify both the onsite and offsite parking needs. Estimation of trip rates (TRICS n. d, b) Mean trip rate parameter estimation - the mean trip parameter is estimated as gross floor area divided by number of surveys results used in the process. Determining the mean traffic or people count - The mean arrival rates are calculated by adding all the arrivals from the survey results and diving it by number of surveys used. The mean departure rates are determined in the same manner. Estimating trip rates - Per hour arrival trips rates is estimated for gross floor area of 100 square meters using the formula (Mean arrival rates / mean trip rate parameter) ´ 100. The similar estimates for departure and total trip rates are given as (Mean departure rates / mean trip rate parameter) ´ 100 and (total travel rates / mean trip rate parameter) ´ 100 respectively. Based on the assessment of the past records and considering the volume of estimated travel volume likely to travel on regular basis to the proposed Haymarket office complex following proposals are presented (Bartolome and Macababbad, 2008). A forecast of the future transportation demand in the region is presented in the Figure 1. The empirical assessments on the trips generated ofr daily travel needs to the office place by car and private vehicles was estimated as 1200, which accounted for the 60 percent of the travel need specifically to the office (Bartolome and Macababbad, 2008). Such a high volume in this category was due to the lack of information on the other reliable travel options that the office goers might have regarding the prevailing facility in the area. The remaining needs are estimated in the following proportions. Nearly, 25 percent of office goers opt for the public transport systems by bus. Those traveling by cycles and pedestrian routes are only meager 1 percent. The parking facilities being earmarked only for maximum of 140 vehicles as the space available is very low. This parking need has to be considerable brought down by appropriate development of public transport arrangements (Bartolome and Macababbad, 2008). Future Plan for improving local transport Majority of transport development in the Edinburgh region is by implementing tram service. This is expected to give very quick, safe and reliable transportation service in the region. This strategy is expected to contribute the councils wider objective on the factors like economic, environmental and community objectives by considerable reduction in pollution and congestion. Thus the end of five year plan period the expectations are successful connectivity with all important location by trams that would be integrated effectively with the buses and other services in the region. Introduction of orbital bus service along city pass region in addition to linking major centres the airport, Edinburgh Park, Straiton, the Royal Infirmary, and Fort Kinnaird. The exploring new options for the interchange area around Haymarket Station is also in plan. Further long term plans also include up gradation of traffic lights with better controls, parking guidance system especially at City centre region, construction of new motor ways, improvements to facilities to pedestrians, cyclists and other road users with appropriate standards for safe and comfortable movement Figure 1 Passenger Volume Forecast at Hypermarket (Source: http://www.haymarketinterchange.com/img/Forecast-Rail-Passenger-Gro.jpg)t. Based on the different option available the most feasible option would be creation of new tramway system interlinked with bus network, promotion of bicycle use and improvement in walking facility, reducing the car use, reorienting the development in line with the public transport system and encouraging public participation and awareness creation among local residents (Strasburg, 2001). With the lower investment requirement, setting up of tram based public transportation system would be an ideal solution to meet the transportation need arising in the Haymarket region in a sustainable manner. References Bartolome, D D S and Macababbad, R J R M (2008), A study on local trip generation characteristics of government offices, [Online] Available http://www.ncts.upd.edu.ph/TRTS/UGrad/200804/Macababbad-Bartolome.pdf [16 November 2008] Edinburgh (2008), City of Edinburgh Council, Local Transport strategy 2007-2011 [Online] Available [14 November 2008] Haymarket (n.d.), Haymarket interchange, [Online] Available [14 November 2008] The Scottish Government Publications (2008), Transport Assessment and Implementation [Online] Available [15 November 2008] Transport Scotland (2008), Concessionary Travel [Online] Available [14 November 2008] Strasbourg, P. G (2001), The tram as a key element of urban transport policy, [Online] Available > [15 November 2008] TRICS (n. d.a), Analysis of Sites [online] Available http://www.trics.org/analysis_of_sites.htm [14 November 2008] TRICS (n. d., b) , System attributes [online] Available [14 November 2008] Read More