Evaluating the Traffic Congestion Potentials in the Cities; Using IHWP Model (Case Study: Urmia City)

Population growth, migration from rural, urban development and increasing vehicle creates an important topic in the name of transport and urban traffic and consequently the complexity of this issue to develop a comprehensive and integrated management of transport and traffic has become inevitable. In urban planning system, there is a direct relation between land use, physical criteria and offered supply of transportation facilities. So the aim of this research is considering physical, transportation and population criteria involved in traffic so that with combining existing indexes by using IHWP model evaluate the points having traffic potential in urmia city. This research according to its purpose is the kind of applied research and according to method of work has descriptive- analytical nature. To perform the study, 14 indicators from among the factors affecting traffic were selected and after distribution questionnaire between elites, the scores of indicators based on IHWP are calculated. Preparation and Fuzzy fiction of layers based on the relationship of indicators with research aim and according to Sigmoidal functions respectively has done in GIS and Idrisi software and finally by using Weighted Sum the combination of 14 indicators with applying their scores, is done. Transportation researches orientation to traffic modeling with sectorial and limited number of indicators and led to this research by combination of different transportation, population and physical sub- criteria evaluate the traffic congestion potential in the cities. The results show that 17 percent of urmia city area in low traffic potential, 77 percent in middle potential and 6 percent located in high traffic potential area. As a result, it can be said that much of Urmia area in terms of traffic potential is locate in average traffic zone. The results also in separation of 5 regions suggest that regions of 5, 4 and 2, 3 and 1 respectively the highest to the lowest potential in high traffic zones are allocated.