Effects of Bypass in Small and Non-congested Cities: A Case Study of the City Badajoz

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Small cities with less than 200,000 inhabitants do not usually suffer from chronic congestion problems. However, private vehicles are used excessively, making it necessary to implement measures to encourage further use of public transport and pedestrian mobility to make it more sustainable. Bypasses improve level of service (LOS) by removing cars from the city center, leading to significant reductions in overall travel time. Most studies so far have been conducted in large cities suffering chronic congestion problems, so the aim of this research is to analyze the effects of bypasses in small and non-congested cities through the construction of a traffic model in Badajoz (Spain), starting with the allocation of the origin-destination travel matrix derived from surveys and traffic counts conducted at the southern and eastern accesses. The traffic model describes the mobility in potentially-capturable future southern traffic relationships and allows insights into different alternatives in the construction of a new high LOS road. This research concludes that small cities with no chronic congestion problems should plan bypasses as close as possible to the city, since they are the most economical, produce greater traffic capture, greater time savings, and eliminate the largest number of CO2 emissions from the urban center. The more distant alternatives have a higher LOS, however, these are longer and more expensive solutions that also capture less traffic and thus eliminate less CO2 emissions.