Estimating the origin-destination matrix for a sector on the Al-Karkh side of Baghdad city.

The Karkh area of Baghdad is located on the western side of the Tigris River, and this area has recently suffered from an increase in traffic congestion due to the rapidly ballooning number of vehicles without adequate planning. This paper thus aimed to evaluate the transportation system for the area chosen by calculating the Origin-Destination (O-D) matrix that represents the number of trips taken between an origin and a destination and how these are distributed. The O-D matrix was calculated by means of various programs: the first program was ArcGIS, used to create a model of the road network. Once the information necessary to run that program was entered, another program, TransCAD, was used to analyse the network to calculate the matrix. Data for some intersections was collected using video recordings, with data extracted by using the manual counting method to calculate traffic volumes per link for the selected intersection. This data was then entered into ArcGIS in the form of spreadsheet files. The results of the O-D matrix creation showed that the highest number of trips occurred in node (2), which represents the Al-Shula-Al-Ghazaliya intersection and node (3), the rotating bridge, where the number of trips was 2,154 per hour, while the number of trips between Al-Taji Rotary Bridge and the Al-Basra Street-Abu Ghraib Highway Intersection, node (1), was equal to 1,695 per hour. The O-D results matrix shows the main concentrations of movement between regions, and these mobility patterns thus offer sound inputs for transport planning, thus helping decision-makers select the best alternatives for network optimisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]