Traffic management of Satara city

Abstract

Satara city situated on Pune Bangalore Asian Highway (AH 47) is developing rapidly with high educational and industrial development. The number of education institutes, various district government offices and tourist places are available in Satara city, thus the people attracting toward city. The elevation of satara is 742meter (2434feet) from sea shore so that water way is not present in city. The railway facility is available for the satara city but the railway station is away from city. Railway Station is situated at the Kshetra Mahuli which is outside the city about 8 KM from the bus stand. Thus only way of transportation within the city is road way. Present available road transportation facility does not fulfill the traffic demand, results in increased congestion of traffic on the road. In Satara city total 11 number of junctions are available, among this the Powai Naka Junction which is the main junction in Satara city is selected for the study. At this junction manual count traffic survey is done. The traffic count was taken for two days in week, on working day as well as on non-working day. The traffic count was used to analyses traffic flow in the city. Traffic count is converted into the suitable Passenger Car Unit (PCU) by using suitable factor recommended by IRC 106 -1990. In this study the flow of traffic from each road in PCU and peak traffic period at the junction is observed. The peak hour traffic density at Powai Naka Junction is observed 7854.36 PCU from 5pm to 6pm at evening and 5521.86 PCU from 10am to 11am. If the vehicles from Kolhapur, Pandharpur comes to meet to the bus stand are diverted in under pass then the traffic at junction is reduces. As congestion reduces the possibility of the major and minor accident are decreases.