Transport Department of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR)
Arup
Hong Kong CBD
2011 – 2012
MULTIMODAL
PEDESTRIAN SIMULATION
PUBLIC TRANSPORT
The Transport Department of HKSAR wanted to conduct a large-scale assessment of the potential traffic problems resulting from a major new infrastructure development in Hong Kong’s central business district.
They wanted to reduce car traffic, encourage more train use, improve access for those with impaired mobility and keep the harbor area as a pedestrian zone.
New government headquarters, office buildings and two additional metro lines in the Admiralty business district have prompted the need to manage the already heavy congestion and to improve pedestrian access. At the time of the study, there were nearly 30,000 passenger trips during peak hours on weekdays at the time of the study.
The modeling team took an integrated approach, combining the Legion for Aimsun pedestrian simulator with the Aimsun Next microscopic simulator in a single software application. This enabled city planners to manage the different and often competing requirements of pedestrians and traffic.
The pedestrian model includes richly detailed pedestrian areas containing obstacles, stairs, escalators, and queuing at ticket booths or bus stops; the traffic model represents multi-modal public transport in all its complexity: a mix of trams, buses, scheduled and reserved lanes realistically represent Hong Kong’s multi-level road structure along with 34 bus stops, multiple metro entrances, an area for Kiss-and-Ride operations, and multi-level mass transit rail (MTR) stations.
Pedestrian interaction with buses adds realism to vehicle arrival and departure, providing load-dependent dwell times and platoons of passengers alighting and heading towards the MTR station entries on their intermodal transfer.
The proposed layout aims to reduce congestion by encouraging more people to use trains instead of their cars, diverting road-based traffic to rail-based public transport. The model design included improved access for those with impaired mobility and helped to keep the harbor area next to the new government headquarters as a pedestrian zone, preserving its character and promoting green travel.
Using simulation outputs and a 3D model of the interchange makes it possible to create much clearer and more accessible presentations of the impact of the proposed mitigation schemes to key government officials. In the final analysis, the model successfully demonstrated that the proposed traffic improvement schemes could indeed mitigate existing traffic issues and cater for future traffic growth.
TfNSW understood that delays on alternative corridors would lead to some drivers choosing to take a different route, either occasionally or all the time, when measures such as SCATS Ramp Metering System (SRMS) or additional lanes were introduced.
Eurotunnel wanted to use modeling to guide a decision on whether or not to develop the parking access area and what outcomes this would have on user behavior.
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