University of Twente Student Theses
Redesigning an Intersection to Accommodate Municipal Area Development Plans
Strieben, T.J. (2024) Redesigning an Intersection to Accommodate Municipal Area Development Plans.
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| Abstract: | The intersection between the Corrensstraße and the Henriette-Son Straße/Mendelstraße in the west of the German city Münster is currently inadequately designed for its traffic flows. Originally designed in the 1960s in complement to the construction of vast university educational facilities, the intersection is focused on maximizing motorized access to the university buildings. Since its initial construction, however, the municipality’s priorities in mobility infrastructure have shifted drastically towards the three pillars of sustainability and new developments to surrounding areas, as well as the Corrensstraße itself, warrant a fundamental redesign of the intersection. From a preselection of four alternative designs, a single design alternative is chosen as the most optimal according to a set of design criteria and weightings decided according to the municipality’s goals and values, as well as considering the interests and influence of certain stakeholders. The different alternatives are modeled as microsimulations and evaluated in respect to the performance of the current situation, providing insight into the benefits and drawbacks of each design. In doing so, the addition of criteria other than those used for this investigation is possible to make an administrative decision on which intersection should be constructed. According to the investigation, a segregated roundabout services the traffic flows and wishes of the municipality and stakeholders best. It performs particularly well in its environmental and sustainable travel options, whilst producing minimal to no additional queues or travel time increases. Of the chosen alternatives, it also performs second only to a signalized crossing in safety. In the final design recommendations, certain additions to the final design are suggested to mitigate the negative safety effects without influencing the positive performances of the roundabout. Taking a broader perspective, the results obtained in this work can be generalized and extracted to be applied to other intersections in Münster, as well as elsewhere. By investigating the performances of the different alternatives separately, the intermediate results generate insight about the performance of certain design elements on the safety, environmental, sustainable mobility, and accessibility ratings. Thereby, given differing priorities or different traffic demands per intersection, another solution may be more viable. Despite these drastic changes in values, the same methodology may be applied to obtain representative results, albeit with different criteria weightings. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Bachelor) |
| Faculty: | ET: Engineering Technology |
| Programme: | Civil Engineering BSc (56952) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/104039 |
| Export this item as: | BibTeX EndNote HTML Citation Reference Manager |
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