Attached
are papers that describe ways of removing traffic jams economically and by
using existing technology. It is based on the flow equations where it can be
shown that traffic flow (vehicles per time) is not dependent on speed (Refer to
Highway Traffic Manual). These papers had been submitted for academic review in
journals but had been rejected because of insufficient academic content, and
not because they are wrong. The papers remain copyrighted to me and should not
be distributed without permission and proper acknowledgements.
To remove
traffic jams, it should be sufficient to slow down vehicles at junctions
without stopping them. Stopping them such as at crossings and traffic lights is
what causes traffic jams. We can remove crossing completely by using No Crossing
U-turns, which are well known already. Instead of road crossing, we use mergings.
Mergings may
still cause accidents but these accidents are less fatal compared to crossings
as shown by RCUT (Restricted Crossing U-turns), well known and described in
textbooks. In Sabah, I notice that merging lanes are so short that they turn
into waiting lanes, but even these are safer than outright crossings. A few
attempts had been made in Sabah to replace mergings with crossings but these
are dangerous to the drivers, and a few had reverted to the short merging
lanes.
The standard
practice of U-turn in Sabah is to provide extra diverging lane which turned
into waiting lanes because vehicles have to cross the roads. This practice is
not wise if we consider traffic flow. The diverging lane is an extra lane but
traffic flow is diverted, so total traffic flow is less. It is useless to
provide extra flow capacity for traffic that is less.
What is
proposed is to divert the diverging lane to the other side to become a merging
lane. It makes more sense flow-wise because we add traffic flow to the other side
of the lane so additional lanes are needed. To provide extra two lanes for the
turning, the emergency lanes are placed at the centre, i.e. the island of the
road. To cater for longer vehicles, we provide another crossing U-turn after
the no-crossing U-turn. Refer to Figure 1 of the paper, “No-crossing U-turn”.
Sarawak
has a lot of huge roundabouts because it still has a lot of land area.
To implement No-crossing U-turns to replace all junctions will require
two roundabout size U-turns. Also means adding additional roundabouts
for each roundabout in Sarawak. There is less need now to reduce traffic
jams at these places, but we should be prepared for the future. Kota
Kinabalu is already congested.
Because
most vehicles can turn within the four lanes, we can reduce traffic jams
tremendously, that traffic flow will be continuous most of the time. It will
make pedestrial crossings more difficult. Our normal solution is to provide
overhead bridges. They are high for elderly people to climb. It is better to
provide underpass tunnel that is only 2.6m (9 feet) in height. The technology
to build this underpass is already well established in underground car parks.
These underground car parks are designed for slow speed so have high gradients.
These high
gradients mean that the length to enter the underground car park is short, and
therefore saves a lot of space. These characteristics allow them to be most
useful in providing under passes at the centre of the city where overhead
bridges take up too much space. Refer to the article, “An Optimum Urban Road
Junction Design”.
Yours
sincerely,
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