Study of the Impact Roadside Parking has on Traffic Flow Characteristics - A VISSIM Simulation Based Approach

With the increase in private vehicle ownership and urban space limitations, roadside parking has become a common sight in urban areas. Even though provision for parking is considered in an economic background, lesser attention has been paid for designing and planning of on-street parking lots. Due to this phenomenon effective lane widths have reduced causing reductions in capacity. Further, due to entry/exit movements of vehicles to and from the traffic stream shockwaves propagate causing additional delays, especially during high flow periods. Studies focused on the effects roadside parking manoeuvres have on traffic flow are sparse. Hence this study attempts to find the effects such movements have. With the evolution of micro simulation software, advanced traffic flow models can be employed for research studies. The PTV-VISSIM micro simulation software which adopts the `Wiedemann 74' car following model was used to simulate heterogeneous traffic conditions observed on local roads. A location along the A3-Colombo Negombo road was selected for the study. Through simulation it was observed that capacity dropped by a value of approximately 17% when there were 250 parking manoeuvres per hour.