The Assessment on Road Capacity and Level of Service: The Case of Western Shewa Zone Ambo Town, Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia

Abstract

The increasing number of population and vehicles has a negative impact on the capacity and operating condition of road facilities. Congestion and delay are the major problems related to capacity and level of service of road segment in the city. This is a major concern to travelers, administrators, merchants, developers and the community at large. This issue is now days a great concern for Ethiopia and major cities in the country like Ambo town. From these major towns in Ethiopia, Ambo town is now the concern for this study. This study mainly tries to assess the capacity and qualitatively describe the performance and level of service of selected road segments in Ambo town. The research involves both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Quantitative data and analysis were used to determine the level of service of the selected road segments. As a data source both primary data and direct field measurements, mainly volume count, Speed and travel time survey and also secondary data were the main sources of quantitative data. I have selected three representative sections to study the capacity and level of service. And the segments are classified a sub-urban street under interrupted flow type according to the Highway capacity manual 2000. From the analysis the selected segments are performing well in terms of level of service analysis. The lowest level of service is LOS D and the highest level of service is LOS C. The capacity analysis result shows the capacity of the segment is not well at all for the selected segment. To improve the capacity of the segments the Town should improve well designed roadway with sufficient number of lane and lane width and proper improvement of parking areas for vehicles. Keywords: Level of Service, Capacity, HCM 2000 DOI : 10.7176/CER/11-8-01 Publication date :September 30 th 2019