Team Number: 013
School Name: Bosque School
Area of Science: Transportation
Project Title: Traffic Flow in the Bosque School Parking Lot
Problem Definition:
We are trying to conduct an easier or faster, but still efficient way to enter and exit the Bosque School parking lot. We chose this problem because we saw that it was taking a while for parents to pick up their children and leave the school. This is a major problem in our school because our roads are small and cannot accommodate large numbers of cars. It is also a risk to our community to have a large number of people all leaving or entering at the same time. In this problem we will simulate our school parking lot, and hopefully show how we can progress the traffic from entering and exiting Bosque School. We will also provide more than one simulation of our parking lot, and will show a couple different ways to exit the school.
Problem Solution:
We don’t have a problem solution yet. We are currently researching. But our solution should provide swift, efficient egress and smoother traffic flow.
Progress to date:
Right now we are researching why the parking lot was designed the way it was, and what the designers were hoping to accomplish in doing so. We are also hoping to meet with the head of our school to get the approximate layouts of our school parking lot. We will conduct a survey from the times of 2:50 – 3:20 pm (the time surrounding the end of the school day) to see how many cars arrive, and the average time it takes for them to leave.
Expected Results:
We expect the reality of this problem to be that people are people, and that people aren’t going evacuate very quickly, but instead will probably take all the time they need. But if for some reason the people can get out of the school faster it will save a lot of time and effort for everyone. A lot of people getting out of our parking lot have gotten frustrated because they go up the wrong side of the road. This causes a lot of people then getting into bad positions in the parking lot, which then causes even more congestion. Hopefully our project will work, and will help our school become more effective.
Bibliography:
Carmody, Martha. Telephone interview. 7/12/2004.
Trojahn, Lynn. Telephone interview. 7/12/2004.
Wooden, Andrew. Telephone interview. 7/12/2004.
Smith, J. Transims Information Page. Los Alamos National Labs. December 16, 2004 http://www-transims.tsasa.lanl.gov/
Allen, Tom. Telephone interview. 16/12/2004.
Team Members
Sponsoring Teacher(s)