Dynamic pedestrian flow modeling at Bangkok's Chinatown street strips | |
| Author | Poudel, Lekhanath |
| Call Number | AIT Thesis no.TE-23-09 |
| Subject(s) | Pedestrians--Thailand--Bangkok--Simulation methods Pedestrian traffic flow--Thailand--Bangkok--Mathematical models |
| Note | A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering in Transportation Engineering |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Abstract | Pedestrians are the most vulnerable road users in a traffic setting. On an average, 18% of the road incidents involve pedestrians directly or indirectly. Bangkok is easily one of the largest cities in Southeast Asia housing for some 11 million population of the country. The CBD areas in Bangkok are walkable for the most parts. Major tourist attraction places like China Town Bangkok are made easily accessible to the visitors. Bangkok China Town generates huge traffic as it is able to engage visitiors with varied activities from shopping to eating to enjoying lively street concerts. In order to address the highway issues in Thailand, traffic models are developed in abundance, however, there lacks adequate researches about the pedestrians and the addressing of the issues faced by the most vulnerable road users. This research is an attempt to model the current situation of heavily crowded walking street strips in Bangkok China Town and propose an alternative scenario for the addressing of current issues faced by both pedestrians and traffic. This study is divided into two parts; the first part has successfully modeled the pedestrian dynamics in six different locations of China Town Bangkok and the second part has modeled four boundary intersections of China Town streets. The modeling is done separately for each locations, using one of the reliable traffic simulation and modeling tool; PTV Vissim. The pedestrian modeling is done with the help of a truncated PTV Viswalk features.The six studied locations for this research are: Song Sawat (N), Nai Ek Roll Noodle Shop, Plaeng Nam road junction, Fruit Shop, Outdoor Dining Spot and Ratchawong Sidewalk. All the models in PTV Viswalk were able to mimic the real pedestrian movement patterns and their dynamic behaviours associated in the due course of traversing to their destination. During modeling process, the parameters that affected pedestrian movement and walking behaviour were calibrated in accordance with the sensitivity ratio of each parameters. Parameters like Lamda and Noise required multi stage calibration in order to obtain the least possible errors. From the results of alternative scenario of walkway width widening for pedestrians traveling at different studied locations, it is concluded that the average walking speed, flow, density, travel time and the bottleneck passage time are all improved at best by 2.7%, 55.4%, 54.9%, 10.1% and 25.5% respectively from the existing scenario at either of the studied locations. PTV Vissim was utilised for modeling solely the traffic conditions at the four intersections closest to the main China Town walking street. The study reveals that the vehicle delay is maximum at the intersection holding the main China Town’s traffic, ie. Song Sawat intersection. Hence, in order to address this issue, we have proposed an alternative scenario by introducing a “Reversible” lane during the pedestrian peak hour at the adjacent road link of the walking street, ie. Thanon Charoen Krung. The results of the study prove that the innovative approach of redirecting the main traffic via a different route is a promising alternative to the existing context as the key vehicle parameters such as vehicle delay and total travel time of the main entry point, ie. Song Sawat intersection is improved by 15.7% and 16.5% respectively. The main traffic redirection was done until the 30th pecentage mark and the results show that only upto 20% of the main traffic redirection is feasible because redirections beyond 20% mark made one of the China Town’s boundary intersections; Thanon Charoen Krung – West perform badly in key traffic metrics like vehicle delays and total travel time. The results output of the simulation are tested with One-way ANOVA variance test and the test concluded that each of the datasets were of less than 5% significance. |
| Year | 2024 |
| Type | Thesis |
| School | School of Engineering and Technology |
| Department | Department of Civil and Infrastucture Engineering (DCIE) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Transportation Engineering (TE) |
| Chairperson(s) | Kunnawee Kanitpong |
| Examination Committee(s) | Ampol Karoonsoontawong;Punyaanek Srisurin |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | AIT Scholarships |
| Degree | Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2024 |