Exemplary Studies for Site Impact Traffic Evaluation

From different angles, this paper presents three analytical examples of traffic impact evaluations for site development projects. Example A, a traffic impact study of a residential plus retail development, demonstrates in a systematic manner the basic steps for conducting site traffic impact studies, including setting up scenarios, analyzing existing traffic conditions, predicting site-generated trips and their impacts, and developing mitigation measures as well as allocating responsibilities. Example B, a supermarket development project proposed within a metropolitan shopping plaza, focuses on introducing the procedures of applying a traffic-count based correlation-coefficient method to site-generated trip distributions. And, Example C is a brief illustration of using transportation planning models to evaluate traffic impacts of a large-sized regional commercial zone that will be developed in the future. The paper concludes with remarks in regards of several technical issues that are fundamental to traffic impact studies.