Assessment Level of Service on Main Streets of Latakia City Under Quarantine Conditions

Abstract

With every pandemic that strikes the world, a new history of humanity is written, a different map is drawn for the economic, social and political balances of countries. The new Corona virus has dramatically changed countries' political trajectory and economy, the immediate economic impact of the pandemic seemed clear, this has contributed to the development of a global contingency plan and the activation of precautionary and solidarity measures, that would protect the economy from potential damage.

Syria has resorted to all possible methods to sensitize citizens to the seriousness of this pandemic, more stringent methods have been adopted to deal with their effects, such as quarantine, in particular, with the abolition by the State of all cultural and sporting events, festivals, seminars, exhibitions, etc, and that's reflected in civic life, and largely on traffic on the main civic streets that connect the vital areas of the city, In terms of food, medicine and hospitals, that's a lot of traffic congestion, the level of  service will fall dramatically.

This research is aimed at conducting a study to investigate the levels of service on arterial and colliery street networks in Latakia, during the quarantine period due to the Corona crisis, according to the concept of service level proposed in the Highway Capacity Manual for the 2000. The concept of "moving observer" has been used, using GPS as a data collection tool, to measure journey times and average speed on various arterial and vital streets in Latakia City, during different periods of peak time before the date of the stone, compare it to the period of free run. Data processing and purpose mapping were carried out, it shows the journey times on these streets all over the city, to be able to determine the level of service on it. The results have shown very low levels of service for a large number of vital arterial streets in the city. It was important to study and discuss all possible urgent actions to reach a level of service required in a crisis period.