Paper Details

TRB 91st Annual Meeting (January 22-26, 2012)

Event Number:	523
Event Title:	Big Ideas for Smaller Cities: Planning in Small and Medium-Sized Communities
Event Date:	Jan 24 2012 10:15AM- 12:00PM
Event Location:	Hilton, Georgetown East
Event Description:
Event Agenda:

Planning of Secondary Road Network for Low-Speed Vehicles in Small or Medium-Sized City: Using Google Earth (12-2767)

In response to the growing environmental concern, the use of low speed vehicle (LSVs) on public roadways is gradually increasing in recent years as a short-range alternative to fossil-fueled autos. Primarily designed for protected environments and gated communities, LSVs have a maximum speed limit of 25 mph and are not subjected to the same Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards mandatory for regular passenger cars. This research presents a comprehensive planning methodology to develop a secondary low speed roadway network primarily intended for use by LSVs, which can be applied to small or medium-sized cities with closely located activity spaces. Typically, small or medium sized cities have limited planning or construction resources, therefore the objective was to develop the low speed network based on the existing road system of the city, with minimal infrastructure modifications. The City’s Transportation Plan and public opinion on route preference were integrated with the road analysis tool of Google Earth to accomplish the network development process. Public involvement in the process through survey provided valuable insight on users’ route choice behavior; whereas the roadway inventory by City’s Transportation Planning document and Google Earth helped to evaluate city’s actual transportation infrastructure and also helped to analyze the factors influencing LSV users’ route preference behavior. The developed low speed roadway network is expected to provide safe and efficient connectivity from neighborhood areas to major activity centers of the city by LSVs, while minimally affecting the safe operations of regular automobiles, or exposing the LSV operators to undue risk.

Authors
     Jannat, Mafruhatul , Oregon State University
     Hunter-Zaworski, Katharine M., Oregon State University