The facts
Client: Cumbria
County Council
Location: Workington, Cumbria
Services: Transport Modelling,
Economic Appraisal
Project Value: Estimated £15,000
Start/Completion: Nov 09— Feb 10
The project
In November 2009 Capita Symonds were
commissioned by Cumbria County Council to develop a series of
potential approaches to the future streetscape and movement within
the town of Whitehaven.
The Whitehaven Streetscapes for People project
built on earlier work undertaken to develop and engage the public
with the overarching objective of developing proposals that would
provide a quality experience for all users of the town centre.
As part of this scheme, a model of Whitehaven
town centre was developed using
S-Paramics in order to assess the performance effects of the
proposed highway layout changes.
The study area of the Whitehaven Streetscapes
Paramics model consisted of the highway network within Whitehaven
town centre, and included the key highway links and junctions
within and surrounding the Lowther Street/Duke Street one-way
system.
The Paramics model was developed from scratch
using a DXF Ordnance Survey overlay of the study area as a template
for the network coding. Traffic counts were undertaken in April
2010 to obtain data from which to develop demand matrices for the
model.
The network was developed to current
WebTAG/DMRB guidelines. The purpose of the model was to assess the
impact of the proposed concept design on the key junctions within
the network, in terms of journey times and overall congestion.
Modelled traffic flows were also used as
inputs into individual junction models developed in Linsig, Arcady
and Picady.
The concept design included a number of
features that were a unique challenge to model. These included
pedestrian courtesy crossings and shared road space with undefined
priority of use on Lowther Street. A number of scenarios were
assessed assuming different levels of re-routing as a result of the
design.