An examination of the appropriateness of flyovers as a traffic management measure to the road intersections of Sri Lanka

Abstract

Traffic congestion and related issues are mostly common phenomena in most of the developing countries. There are different, location specific measures have been taken as solutions for decongestion at the urban intersections. One of the recent traffic management methods for congestion alleviation in Colombo City is the introduction of flyovers to important intersections at main road corridors. The importance of a flyover is its use of the vertical space which assumed that cause fewer impacts to the adjacent properties and the existing infrastructure. This study seeks to examine the level of success achieved through introducing flyover concept to the road intersections in terms of overall spatial development. It is argued by many people on the effectiveness of the flyovers, especially at road intersections such as Dehiwala, Nugegoda that their effects on the functional efficiency of the city through its mismatch between physical and design aspects. The performance of the recently introduced flyovers road intersections can be tested by comparing before and after conditions in relation to the overall expected achievements by using spatial parameters. Basically, accident counts, speed and travel time surveys can be used as the main evaluation criteria to test this at a particular location. Moreover, the variation of the pedestrian movement pattern, impacts on the trading activities and vehicular flow pattern after the project implementation can be used to evaluate the level of impact to the users at the location.