MEMORANDUM
TO:Dr. Nelson, Dr. Hotchkiss
FROM:Devin Moore, Jeremy Searle, Scott Shea
DATE:February 2, 2009
SUBJECT:Transporte de Zacatecas Project
Overview
We feel that our project is progressing nicely. We have a good idea of what we need to accomplish and have created a plan to do it. We have made contact with both Professor Dzul and Bely Vazquez (the student assigned to the transportation project in Mexico). We are very optimistic about the success of the project.
Progress
We have created the basic transportation network for the 2 km by 1 ½ km area that we are focusing on. This was done using satellite images of Zacatecas and information given to us from our Mexican counterparts. Bely has sent us several AutoCAD files of the area we are analyzing. These drawings include traffic flow direction, signals, areas of worst congestion, and other important information. Scott and Jeremy are also learning some basic Spanish from Devin and Dr. Saito. Dr. Saito has been very helpful in keeping us organized and focused. He is also a wealth of knowledge for transportation modeling. We have identified one potential suggestion that may help relieve congestion. There is a triangle shaped intersection where three different streets converge that experiences heavy traffic. By turning this intersection into a roundabout, traffic flow should increase considerably. There is already a fountain at the center of this triangular area so it is well suited for this purpose. We have had numerous online chats with Bely and feel that she is supportive and that we both have a similar vision for the project.
Difficulties
The biggest difficulty that we have faced is the lack of traffic counts for our area of study. It is extremely difficult for Bely to get the data we need by herself (traffic counts are usually taken by at least two people). Unfortunately, Bely is the only one assigned to this project in Mexico. From what she has said, this will probably not change. We have asked if the local government or maybe the State of Zacatecas may already have traffic data for the area. Bely responded that they might, and would try to find out. We can estimate traffic values for the different streets and intersections, however, our model will not be very accurate without real data from the area. We are also unsure of several other details required in the model, such as number of lanes, turn lanes, signal length, and one way streets.