Development on Water Transport System in Sri Lanka with Available Water Resources

Abstract

Traffic congestion is an enormous problem at peak hours in western province. Existing transport system is not capable to overcome these complexity situations. Therefore, Srilankan government needs to find out different mode of transport to save time and money and finally economy of the country. In the past history, there was a rich water transportation system over the country. Specially, the western province has a well-distributed network of inland waterways, comprising of main rivers, streams, canals, lakes, and tanks. Most of the time, the existing waterways were used for freight transportation (timber, sand, brick, and tiles. compare to Public transportation. The study is to determine the efficient use of waterways for the public transportation focusing the travel time and fuel consumption. The existing water way network was map and find availability of other network connectivity using ArcGIS and Google Earth Pro software. Then compare it with an existing public transportation mode (bus) and checked the suitability of usage of water transportation as an alternative to reduce the existing traffic congestion problem. And proposed water way transport system, that capable of potential and strategic way to reduce the traffic congestion problem in Colombo and its sub urban areas.