Abstract

High urbanization rate and Economic development have caused many challenges to transportation systems. Among these, long time delay and high fuel consumption of vehicles at congestion places are a few to mention. Some literatures have revealed that road traffic congestions are caused by inadequate infrastructures, long signal cycle time, and poor traffic management, such as incapable roads, inefficient public transit, and high travel demand. The research study was focused on the effect of traffic congestion on average time delay at a selected signalized road intersection in Addis Ababa. The study area was the Hager Astedadrerroad traffic signal intersection. The methodology that has been employed for the study was a quantitative descriptive research design method. The data needed were; road geometry data, signal data, traffic vehicles flow data including the pedestrian data were collected on-peak hours (with 15minutes intervals) from 7:30 to 9:30 AM and from 5:30 – 7:30 PM for the four consecutive working days. Data of traffic classes were extracted manually on a separate worksheet. The volume of each vehicle category was converted to the same vehicle category using the passenger car unit (PCU) of each vehicle class. Data analysis and processing have been performed using SIDRA (Signalized and Unsignalized Intersection Design and Research Aid) intersection software in order to know the traffic flow condition at the intersection. The result of average time delay was used to know the corresponding level of service and operational performance of the intersection. The outcomes of the research work minimize average time delay by adopting different improving strategies that range from low-cost measures such as improvements to signal timing and phase numbers, to high-cost measures such as intersection reconstruction, which be applied in the study area after knowing the amount of average time delay as well as the types of the level of service within the intersection area.