How to evaluate the extent of mobility strategies in a university campus: An integrated analysis of impacts

Abstract

This research explored the integrated effect that several mobility scenarios had on traffic performance, conflicts, global and local pollutants, and emission-related costs on a University Campus. Emphasis was given to the campus parking areas. It was hypothesized that the implementation of a new direct access to the campus without any capacity restriction may be worse for the overall network performance.

A well-calibrated and validated modeling platform of traffic, emissions and safety was used to examine different traffic scenarios in the University of Aveiro, Portugal. These included the replacement of traffic lights by roundabouts, a new direct access to campus and some parking areas, increasing campus walkability and introduction of speed humps on main crosswalks. The analysis was performed both link-by-link and in the overall study area.

Mobility scenarios with a new direct access to the campus yielded average reductions up to 9% in both costs and local pollutants (carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons), and 36% and 32% for the number of stops and traffic conflicts, respectively. Nonetheless, additional traffic conflicts can be expected within campus after the implementation of those scenarios compared to the existing situation when no traffic capacity restrictions are assumed.

Keywords:

• Integrated analysis
• modeling
• mobility measures
• parking
• university campus

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the cooperation of Toyota Caetano Auto S.A. is appreciated which allowed the use of vehicles for data collection, and the volunteers and the students from Road Traffic and Road Safety course (2016–2017) who participated in the traffic data collection. The authors also acknowledge the Technical Services of the University of Aveiro which provided the parking data and background maps.

Additional information

Funding

This work is financed by ERDF Funds through the Operational Program Competitiveness and Internationalization - COMPETE 2020 and by National Funds through FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology within the scope of the POCI-01-0145-FEDER-16740 project.