Discovery the most effective roads of the main network of the Sfax City in Tunisia to fit for the tramway insertion

Résumé

Abstract

The continuous expansion witnessed in the city of Sfax has culminated in a significant extension of the distances separating the dwelling areas from work places, rendering the extension of its transport network an urgent priority. In effect, ever since the 1980s, the trips split model has veered towards the generalization of the private car. Today, the city’s urban transport network has reached its maximum capacity limits. As a remedy to this saturation state, the authorities have been pondering on setting up a mass transport system similar to the tram. As result, an effective geometric study would enable to draw a feasibility geometric map viable to integrate a tramway across the city’s transport network (Sfax). Hence, three road sections: red, green and yellow labels, have been identified, in accordance with the two major factors accounted for on designing the tram line layout, specifically, the road width as well as the existing buildings’ distribution. The present road has a heterogenous distribution of exiting building. The tramway inserting could have a many problem: land acquisition differs according to the property nature and ownership structure, ranging from roadside buildings (long-term land acquisition), villas (medium-term land acquisition), bare land (short-term land acquisition), and buildings with a four to five-meter setback for private parking lots (land acquisition completed).  Noteworthy, however, is that riverside access turns out to pose a major problem as it could well affect the tram commercial speed. The score length methodology would help us establish a distinctive categorization of the existing roads from the least to the most appropriate for setting up the tramway. For the Lafran road : the red section length score is 33 along the right road sides, yellow sections length score is 20, green section length score is 6. Accordingly, our conducted study is focused on classifying the routes, making up the city’s road network, in terms of effective disposition to accommodate the tram. Indeed, the least effective roads identified for the installation are Lafran, El Ain and Gremda, registering total scores exceeding forty, while the most effective ring road identified to fit for the installation turns out to be the Majida Boulila Avenue, recording a total score of eleven.

Keywords: Congestion; Tramway; Sections; Length; Total score; Classification.