Anshum p's Senior Project Blog
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Project Title: Crash Course: Untangling Traffic Troubles on Sky Harbor Boulevard BASIS Advisor: Ms. Rowena Rahman Internship Location: Y2K Engineering Mesa Arizona Onsite Mentor: Ms. Denise Baker |
Project Abstract
As Phoenix has grown into the 5th most populous city in America, Sky Harbor Airport has also become the 8th busiest, with over 50 million passengers passing through annually. However, its ground transportation system, especially Sky Harbor Boulevard, struggles to keep up with demand. Congestion and frequent collisions create delays and safety risks, particularly during peak hours when cars merge into the rightmost lane to drop off and pick up passengers. My project will investigate the root causes of these traffic issues and explore practical solutions through transportation engineering. The project will involve analyzing crash data from the Arizona Department of Transportation and Y2K Engineering to identify collision patterns, such as fender benders, sideswipes, and high-risk zones on the boulevard. I will use tools such as Geographical Information Systems (GIS), Power BI, and Excel to map and visualize the data. Then, proven countermeasures, including variable speed limits, roundabouts, and signal timing adjustments, will be researched and evaluated for their success using the CMF(Crash Modification Factors Clearinghouse). This database quantifies the impact of safety measures, enabling accurate estimates of how effective my proposed solutions will be on Sky Harbor Boulevard . By addressing these traffic issues, the project promotes road safety, reduces economic losses caused by car crashes near the airport, and minimizes the environmental impact of congestion-related emissions.
Final Thoughts
Hello! I have finally concluded my senior project after giving my presentation on Saturday. My presentation went smoothly with no major hiccups, which is good. I enjoyed listening to everyone's presentations as well. This post will just cover my final thoughts. The internship experience at Y2K engineering was a highlight for me personally. It was... Read More
Penultimate Blog
Hello again! In today's midweek blog, I wanted to continue last week in addressing several different infrastructure steps which could be taken as countermeasures in the future. Given that Sky Harbor is already applying multi-level separation for arrivals and departures, there is an urgency to seek out more tailor-made solutions for alleviating frequent congestion issues.... Read More
Final Stages
Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog! This week, I prepped my presentation and started making some final edits to my research paper, but I still have some hours left in my internship. So, I've been working on a few assignments. In terms of other research project related tasks, I want to use... Read More
More Countermeasures
Hello! This week, I continued researching Crash Modification factors for the final part of my research project. I first talked to my on site advisor at Y2K engineering about more potential options, and she helped me decide between some close contenders and provided more important information. The first thing to note is that I... Read More
Countermeasures
This week, I explored possible countermeasures to improving traffic flow and safety on Sky Harbor boulevard using the CMF Clearinghouse index. I discussed how it works two blogs back but as a brief recap, each CMF is a crash modification factor that predicts the effect a certain change would have on road safety. Any factor... Read More
Back to Work
Hello! I’m finally back from my two week trip, and I’ve come back with some observations about Sky Harbor airport ( and a crazy tan ). The main thing I noticed is that time of day does affect traffic flow heavily at Sky Harbor. Now this may seem obvious, but I thought it wouldn’t be... Read More
Macrodata Refinement
This week, I reverted my focus back to numerical data in hopes of discovering more patterns and trends. I’m still figuring out Synchro, but that should be up and running in a few weeks’ time. In more exciting news however, I’m beginning phase two of my project as it begins to overlap with phase 1.... Read More
Another Week, Another Spreadsheet
As my internship continues, I’ve been picking up on how to use new software, which I can then apply to my research project. This week, I started using Synchro 12, which is a complete software package for modeling, optimizing, managing and simulating traffic systems. Synchro has many useful features for transportation engineers, but the one... Read More
New Software: Struggles and Insights
My main focus this week for my project was on QGIS ( Quantum Geographic Information System ): software that allows anyone to map their data and perform spatial analysis. After compiling and organizing data from the Arizona Department of Transportation last week, I was ready to map it in QGIS. When I first opened up... Read More
2/15/25 – Green Light
These past two weeks marked the start of my senior research project and internship at Y2K Engineering, a company specializing in traffic analysis and transportation engineering. At Y2K, we conduct Traffic Impact Studies (TIS) to assess how new development projects will affect traffic flow in the surrounding areas. Our work helps private developers manage the... Read More