atom09:Interview Prof.dr.ir. van Arem

We have interviewed Prof.dr.ir. van Arem from the Faculty of Civil Engineering on Monday 17 October 2011.

In the beginning of the interview we explained our concept for the site. Mr. van Arem is specialized in traffic flows, so it was interesting to hear his thoughts about the moving traffic idea. The first question was off course if he thought it is possible to realize something like this. Mr. van Arem reacted very enthusiastic about the idea and showed us some other references which where very innovative. He told us that it is actually very interesting to create new special things because it would attract people (for example look at Lomberd street in San Francisco), if you want something you can build it.

There are several questions you need to ask yourself when you want to create something like this,

- Is it worth the money?

- How do you guide the traffic?

- Do we need the whole site?

- How can we keep nature and as well the house?

It will be very expensive and even more if you keep in mind that it needs to be constructed to carry busses and trucks. But when you want to create something special it always costs a lot of money, you need to be creative to construct it in a cheap way. Look at different ways to create an interactive lane, there is already something like a 'movable barrier'.

We have thought about making the road signs with lights, it can be turned on and off when it is necessary. Mr. van Arem pointed us to a project, some of his students worked on, when he was a teacher at the University of Twente. The students did a project about ‘Dynamic tidal flow lanes’ and this could help us with our design.

There are a lot of rules to guide traffic, you can find them in the ASVV book from CROW. Some innovative ideas to avoid all these rules are already there, for example the so called ‘shared spaces’ (designed by Mr. Monderman). It forces people to be really careful and it helps preventing people from accidents.

To avoid the heavy traffic you can make the site only available for eco-friendly cars with a speed limit as well. The point is that the road is an important connection from highway to city centre, so you need to make a connection. But eco-friendly zones like this could stimulate people to drive with an eco-friendly car. Another point of the eco-friendly car will be that the site will have more clean air and thus a nicer place to stay.

At the end of the interview Mr. van Arem referred us to Prof.dr.ir. H.A.J. de Ridder, because he could help us more with the question;

- How to realize and construct these kind of ideas?

So we can contact him in the future as well.