Abstract:
This paper aims to develop a suitable method to measure urban mobility in Sri Lanka using
an appropriate indicator set. The study only focuses on vehicular mobility. The study covers
four sub-objectives: review and identification of the limitations of existing evaluation
methods, application of already developed evaluation mechanisms to Sri Lankan context in
comparison with foreign cities, determining the best criteria to analyse the mobility index
for the selected case studies, and urging decision makers to take necessary actions to upgrade
the mobility index in Sri Lankan cities. The proposed method includes 13 indicators related
to vehicular mobility. Methodology includes creating a definition using cluster analysis,
deriving suitable parameters according to content analysis, expert survey and factor analysis
in the preceding part. Data analysis is performed using different formulas and spatial
analyses, a mobility index is developed using arithmetic mean, and the index is applied to
selected case studies from Colombo, Kandy and Galle. The “Urban mobility index” and
“Sampling mobility index” are also applied to those cities. Non-judgmental probability
sampling method was used for expert analysis with 22 experts participating. Random
sampling was used for the public survey. Sample size was 140 from each city. Five experts
validated the method. According to the findings Colombo and Galle cities have barely
acceptable mobility levels, and in order to improve indicators returning lower values, some
targets should be established. Kandy has an unacceptable mobility level. This is not critical
but in order to reverse the situation, there should be immediate interventions from society
and administrators. Moreover, in the final part of the research, it is expected to urge decision
makers to take necessary actions to upgrade the mobility level in Sri Lanka. These indicators
will demonstrate areas that should become policy priorities in future. After achieving
acceptable mobility, more indicators can be incorporated to the index.
Citation:
De Silva, C., & Kavindya, P.B.K.C. (2020). Developing a suitable method to evaluate mobility levels in urban areas of Sri Lanka [Abstract]. In T.L. Gunaruwan (Ed.), Proceedings of 5th International Conference on Research for Transport and Logistics Industry 2020 (p. 18). Sri Lanka Society of Transport and Logistics. https://slstl.lk/r4tli-2020/