TRAFFIC SYSTEM
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TOPIC BACKGROUND Melbourne has experienced tremoudous development in term of economics and social integration and is in the process of promoting assimilation minority ethnic groups into the culture and the city in recent decades. It brings social problems that caused by the population growth. With the prediction of demographer Bernard Salt, Melbourne’s population will soar in next 30 years, it will reach over five millions in 2021 and eight millions by 2050 (Smith 2018). From the perspective of Melbourne history, early arrivers look for a settlement and news of settlement at Port Philip spread, which results in fast-growing settlement in Melbourne (ToutSmith, Coccolib and Stevenson 2011). From 1851, Melbourne’s population experiences another surge and Melbourne city begins to develop its traffic system and build its central business district. As a result of the large population, traffic congestion is one of the most important problems. As predicted by the demographer, with the rise of population growth, the existing traffic system is experiencing increasing burden. It not only seriously affects people’s commuting time in and out of city but also have an impact on Melbourne’s residential planning.
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The Ordinary Nature of
TRAFFIC SYSTEM 3
TRAFFIC SYSTEM
by Jie C heng
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ABSTRACT Austroads, the peak organisation of Australasian road transport and traffic agencies, has revealed recurrent causes as the consequence of most of urban congestion, in other words, it explained this “a routine imbalance of the number of road users and road capacity” (Austroads 2016). This report apparently suggests the cause and effect, the number of road users has been contantly increasing and the road capacity remains at its status quo. Therefore, the aim of this research is to discover a method alleviating traffic congestion in peak hours due to the population growth. To solve the problem, There are two possible solutions that can improve current situation - the improvement of public traffic accessibility and the building of “a Walkable City”. The dangers of pedestrian overcrowding, clogged roads and a paralysed public transport system could become a reality if there is no plan to tackle Melbourne’s rapidly growing population and the commuting problems it creates.Road network is not smooth, insufficient facilities, traffic congestion and other problems are becoming more and more prominent; Traffic difficulties, parking difficulties, traffic disorder and other problems are becoming more and more prominent, causing more and more impact and pressure on urban traffic management.
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PROBLEM OBSERVATION Melbourne has experienced tremoudous development in term of economics and social integration and is in the process of promoting assimilation minority ethnic groups into the culture and the city in recent decades. It brings social problems that caused by the population growth. With the prediction of demographer Bernard Salt, Melbourne’s population will soar in next 30 years, it will reach over five millions in 2021 and eight millions by 2050 (Smith 2018). From the perspective of Melbourne history, early arrivers look for a settlement and news of settlement at Port Philip spread, which results in fast-growing settlement in Melbourne (ToutSmith, Coccolib and Stevenson 2011). From 1851, Melbourne’s population experiences another surge and Melbourne city begins to develop its traffic system and build its central business district. As a result of the large population, traffic congestion is one of the most important problems. As predicted by the demographer, with the rise of population growth, the existing traffic system is experiencing increasing burden. It not only seriously affects people’s commuting time in and out of city but also have an impact on Melbourne’s residential planning.
FIGURE 1 Traffic in Melbourne at rush time.
When it comes to evening rush, Figure 2 shows the severity of the traffic congestion. The red color along the road presents the severity of traffic. The deeper red it has, the more crowed the road is. As seen in the figure 2, one fourth of M3 is at the deep red level, which suggests that the level of congestion in M3.
FIGURE 2 Real-time Traffic. 6
Taken by Jie Cheng on the bridge of yarra bend road on 10/ 3/ 2019
Source: https://www.racv.com.au/travel-leisure/holiday-planning/travel-advice/real-time-traffic-information. html 7
DETAILS OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS
1. 3D mapping of Greater Melbourne 2011 population density by SA1 geography Source: https://data.melbourne.vic.gov.au 2. Pedestrian counting sensor location. 3. Pedestrian activity by the numbers, Image by Morphocode. 4. Human construction footprints. 5. Constructed and planned building distributions. 6. Restaurants locations and capacity. 7. On-street parking sensors. 8. Australian Annual New Car sales from 2009-Apr 2019 . 9. Public traffic stations + bike shared locks. 10. A similar map for Melbourne shows public transport. 11. Pedestrian accessibility provided by the walking network. 12. Walking city plan.
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EXISTING PHENOMENON RELATING TO THE PROBLEM
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1 POPULATION DENSITY Human settlement in Victoria district had a long history dating back to 19 centuries. Over the two centuries, the population density of Melbourne has climbed to 453 people per square kilometer, which ranks the most populated state capital city in Australia (ABS 2016). The Figure 1 shows the population density in Melbourne in 2011. From the figure, the population concentrates in CBD and stretches in a radiation shape from the heart to the outside. However, what we have to take notice is that suburbs also remain at a relatively high density. Therefore, with this kind of population distribution, the traffic of Melbourne would inform a form of city-centric distribution. Melbourne’s population growth has been at a high speed until the 1990s, when Melbourne fell into a downturn and its population growth slowed down. During this period, in order to deal with the development bottleneck, the Victorian government also launched a new round of urban construction and planning for Melbourne. Thanks to the rapid response of the government at that time, after a short period of downturn, the urban structure and CBD form of Melbourne basically took shape, and the population of Melbourne exploded again, which is the era we are now living in. Melbourne added 125,424 people last year, the largest annual increase in the number of cities in Australian history, which is equivalent to adding one Darwin per year to Melbourne’s population. Based on current growth rates, Melbourne will add 132,000 people this year, more than the 30 largest cities after Melbourne combined. Based on the current population growth rate in Melbourne, it will reach 6 million in 2025 and Sydney will reach this milestone. Melbourne is set to overtake Sydney as Australia’s largest city by 2026.
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FIGURE 1 3D mapping of Greater Melbourne 2011 population density by SA1 geography. Source: https://data. melbourne.vic.gov.au Draw by Jie Cheng
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The map above contains location and directional information for a total number of 59 pedestrian sensor devices installed throughout the Melbourne city by the time of 2019. Sensors are typically installed under an awning or on a street pole to form a counting zone on the footpath below. They record bi-directional pedestrian movements through the zone, 24 hours, every day. Locations are selected based on three criteria – retail and event activity, regular pedestrian use and the egress and entry flow to these areas. The system records movements, not images, so no individual information is collected. New sensor devices have been recently installed, from 44 in 2015 to 59 in 2019, and with more to come in the near future, as part of the city’s commitment to expanding the system. FIGURE 2 Pedestrian counting sensor location Draw by Jie Cheng
With sensors counting pedestrians, the Figure 3 shows visualized data of the total number of pedestrians counted by year, during 2011 to 2015, including busiest day and busiest location. The growing records of pedestrians show the growth of the population and the growing habit as well as the enthusiasm of walking in the city within a walkable range. As the world’s most livable city, Melbourne is already exhibiting good results when considering these indicators, yet walkability patterns vary from one location to another. In conclusion, the pedestrian activities in the city climb to an extremely high number, especially in 2015, the total number of recorded pedestrian activities of the year is as double as that in 2011. These statistics can prove that not only the population of Melbourne but also the human activities in Melbourne city have a significant increase. FIGURE 3 Pedestrian activity by the numbers, Image by Morphocode 12
Draw by Jie Cheng
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2 CITY FABRICS DENSITY
City density also represents human activities to some degrees. The density of human construction footprints in Melbourne reflects the population density in the city. Figure 4 demonstrates that the population in the east is greater than the west, which suggests the active human activities in the east. Thus, the east side experiences more congested roads and streets during the peak hours because large number of residents. FIGURE 4 Human Construction Footprints Draw by Jie Cheng
In addition, according to the government construction planning - Figure 5, an increasing number of high-rise buildings is planned in east Melbourne in the coming years. Apartment buildings attract large amount of population residing in these regions and extensive growth of human activies will be experienced in the near future. Meanwhile, current construction zones within the city fringe is another source of heavy traffic during the rush hours. Therefore, it can be expected that the siutation of east side of city will be worst off in the future.
FIGURE 5 Constructed and planned building distributions 14
Draw by Jie Cheng
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3 POTENTIAL FACTORS Firstly, city’s hot spots are essential factor that influences the traffic in certain rush hours during the day. For example, dining out is an part of human activities. As shown from the Gis data, the east side of Melbourne has the main capacity of restaurants. Large number of restaurants appearance indicates the vitality of the business and resident occurrence, which would bring streams of people and result in traffic congestion potential.
FIGURE 6 Restaurants locations and capacity Draw by Jie Cheng
On-street parking sensors indicate the on-street parking area within Melbourne. Highly need of parking shows a higher volume of traffic. However, on-street parking can be a factor that blocks the traffic flow on the street. From the perspective of well-organised urban planning, sufficient parking spots and building is efficient to mitigate the on-street parking pressure. From Gis data in Figure 7, the east Melbourne has a dense on-street parking. The Figure demonstrates that on-street parking has almost covered all streets at east Melbourne. These on-street parkings are the potential factor that would lead to an increase of traffic pressue in the east side of Melbourne city.
FIGURE 7 On-street parking sensors Draw by Jie Cheng 16
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FIGURE 8 Australian Annual New Car sales from 2009-Apr 2019
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The last but not the least, the total number of car use keeps climbing in a recent dacade. The chart above demonstrates the total car sales of per year. It is evident to find that the total car of recent years maintain at a high level which is nearly 1.1 million per year. As car is not a consumable product, the annual sales of new cars reach 1.1 million but the number of abandoned cars consist of small portion. The Idcommunity.com (2016) analyzing the number of motor vehicle in Melbourne and found that there are 33.2% of households owning one motors; 34.8% of households own two motors; 15.9% of households own more than three motors in 2016. Therefore, the status quo of generating large amount of cars imposes large pressure on traffic and eventually result in traffic congestion.
POSSIBLE SOLUTION IN-SIGHTS
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1 IMPROVING PUBLIC TRANSPORTATIONS ACCESSIBILITY An effective way to mitigate traffic congestion is to improve the public transport of Melbourne. With comparison of other cities, it is the fact that Melbourne has developed a mature public transport system. However, with the development of Melbourne city, the public transport needs to adjust with the path of city and population development to meet the need of residents. In addition, well organized public transport system can effectively alleviate the traffic congestion. For example, the establishment of the bus line provides an efficient gateway to pass the high way quickly at peak hours. The figure 9 below shows public system in Melbourne. As illustrated by the figure, there are only few points at suburbs and another feature of population distribution – scattered at the suburbs result in the issues. Even if the highest population density located at the CBD, the population of close suburbs compared with city is also at the high level. Although train has a good capacity to carry people, the train system does not have the full coverage for each area. The alternatives are supposed to supplement with the lack of coverage of major public transport.
FIGURE 9 Public traffic stations + bike shared locks. Draw by Jie Cheng
FIGURE 10 A similar map for Melbourne shows public transport.
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The figure above presents the public transport accessibility of Melbourne; The fact is that there is no concerns of accessing public transport at the heart of city. However, in suburbs, the lighter areas indicate the difficulty for the residents to access the public transport. Thus, increasing number of people living in these areas have to choose the mode of travel which could impose pressure on roads and streets and result in a situation of being over its capacity. 2016 Census Quick Statics () asserts that almost 60.2% of employed people prefer traveling to work by driving their own cars; 66.8% of them travel to work by passenger or driving cars. This statics prove that most of employed people would choose car as their commuter tools over public transport. It will definitely result in big challenges for Melbourne.
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To improve the public transport, the main point is how to increase the accessibility of public transport at suburbs. There are some ideas from observation for solving the problem. First of all, as shown in the figure 9, shared bike is a trending way to travel, and there are advantages on the short distance travel. For example, at the scattered residential areas, placing shared bike stations is able to connect people from living areas to the train station. Because plenties of suburbs coverage are wide and large, it is difficult for people to walk to train station. Shared bike can solve this problem to some extent. For example, a thirty minutes walking travel will only take less than 10 minutes by riding a shared bike. Furthermore, bikes have its own lane and do not cause any impact on traffic. Thus, building more shared bike station around suburbs is feasible to encourage people taking public transport rather than driving their own cars. Another option that can improves the public transport accessibility is that government needs to take efforts in building car parks near the train station. It is understandable that building car parks will be costly as limited space available around city areas. However, It is costeffective to conduct the project of building car parks around suburbs, It improves the accessibility of public transport for residents. It will construct a pattern, for example, driving around 5 to 10 minutes to the closest station and park their cars during the working hours and take the train heading to the city. It is a way to incentivize the people to have a certain behaviours. In conclution, there are still rooms of improvement in the accessibility of public transport. The rationale of increasing the number of shared bike stations or cars parks is to shorten the distance between people living area and train station. In this way, people would be more willing to choose public transport instead of driving. To some extent, It is able to reduce the number of car use which is one of the biggest factor that cause traffic congestion.
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2 INTRODUCING “WALKABLE CITY” The City of Melbourne has already proposed “The Walking Plan” in the past years, and it was adopted by the Future Melbourne Committee on November 18, 2014. It looks at how Melbourne’s walking network could be improved as our population grows. As part of the City of Melbourne’s Transport Strategy, the Walking Plan is our commitment to creating an efficient, enjoyable and safe walking environment for residents, workers and visitors.
Sources: City of Melbourne – Participate Melbourne https:// participate.melbourne.vic.gov.au/walkingplan
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This map shows how well each property is connected to other areas via the walking network based on walking time. Areas with greater permeability – more streets – laneways – smaller block sizes and parkland – result in higher levels of pedestrian accessibility. Actually, the government has considered the walking city plan and executed this plan step by step. For example, The age reported that the government considered the blocks between La Trobe and Little Lonsdale streets and Little Bourke and Bourke streets will completely shut off to cars and trucks (Topsfield 2019). The figure 11 below shows that the government has already closed some roads for cars and how they plan in the future. increasing main roads in city would be transferred as walking lane in the plan, which means that cars would not be allowed enter these roads any more. It is an relatively effective approch to release the traffic pressure around CBD area. Indeed, the main problem of traffic congestion is caused by car especially in city area. Due to narrower streets in the city area and complicated situation imvolving pedestrians, cars and trams, it makes the traffic congested undoubtfully. Therefore, setting some core areas as car-forbidden can effectively prevent these places from city’s inherent features.
FIGURE 11 Pedestrian accessibility provided by the walking network. Draw by Jie Cheng
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FIGURE 12 Walking city plan
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Even if this plan can mitigate traffic stress in some areas, it still has some fatal defects. In other words, Walking City plan is not a perfect project to release the traffic. It can reduce car flow in some roads, it also may exacerbate the traffic congestion to the roads near these walking streets. It is true that only by setting walking street cannot reduce the car use of the whole city area. Because people who need to acess these areas will still drive their car and park at city. Therefore, with the strategy of walking city, the government still needs to consider building more car parks at which are near CBD. Also, the government is supposed to consider the car park location, which should be surround the city rather than within the city. In this way, when people driving to city, they need to drive their car to these car park without entering city. Consequently, the traffic issue in city area can be alleviated to some extent.
Source: https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/walk-this-way-plan-toshut-off-elizabeth-street-traffic-on-two-city-blocks-20190515-p51noe.html
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CONCLUSION In conclusion, with the observation of phenomenon that is caused by the social and economic growth of Melbourne city, this report documents and analyses the inherent causes which is putting pressure on the traffic system in detail. They are the limited road capacity for existing population growth and the increase of total number of car uses. Therefore, I come up with two strategies that are able to mitigate the problems within the city and Melbourne highway. The accessibility of public transport can effectively reduce the use of cars by those residents living in the areas that is difficult to walk. The establishment of “a Walkable city�, to some extent, overcomes the inherent reasons of traffic congestion within the city, but we have to make sure that the plan is supplemented by the building accessable car parks around the city fringe. However, the effective implementation of the plan needs to base on the projection of capacity and human activites.
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REFERENCES
1.Smith, R., 2018, ‘Melbourne population to soar past Sydney within decade’, News.com.au, viewed 1 June 2019, < https://www.news.com.au/finance/ economy/australian-economy/melbourne-population-to-soar-past-sydneywithin-decade/news-story/e88a537f61de7b74c2897d102a40cc10> 2.Tout-Smith, D., Coccoli, E. and Stevenson, M. 2011, ‘The Founding of Melbourne’, 1835 in Museums Victoria Collections,viewed 1 June 2019, <https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/articles/6775> 3.Austroads, 2016, ‘Congestion and Reliability Review’, viewed 1 June 2019, <https://www.onlinepublications.austroads.com.au/items/AP-R534-16> 4.ABS, 2016, ‘Regional Population Growth, Australia’, viewed 1 June 2019, <https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Previousproducts/3218.0Main%20 Features752016> 5.The Age, 2018, ‘Melbourne traffic: Your say on how to cut congestion’, viewed 31 March 2019, < https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/ melbourne-traffic-your-say-on-how-to-cut-congestion-20180704-p4zpg5. html> 6.Topsfield, J. 2019, ‘Walk this way: plan to shut off Elizabeth Street traffic on two city blocks’, The Age, viewed 30 March 2019, < https://www.theage.com. au/politics/victoria/walk-this-way-plan-to-shut-off-elizabeth-street-traffic-ontwo-city-blocks-20190515-p51noe.html> 7.Idcommunity, ‘Community profile’, viewed 30 March 2019, < https://profile. id.com.au/australia/car-ownership?WebID=260>
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