Bosporus Bridge Traffic Operation Techniques Using Real-time Earthquake Information to Mitigate the Risk Involved

Abstract

One of the two bridges connecting Asia to Europe, Bosporus Bridge in Istanbul/Turkey, will be affected by the expected severe earthquake from the underneath of the Sea of Marmara in near future. As the traffic density on the bridge corresponds to the busiest in Turkey, utmost effort must be paid to keep the lives and casualties at the possible lowest level. No research hitherto has been conducted to explain the concept of risk management with regard to the lives of those people travelling on the bridge to be saved by combining both traffic management techniques and earthquake early warning system technology. This paper investigates the traffic operation techniques on Bosporus suspended bridge when a pre-known time period is available for the earthquake. Furthermore, this paper focused also on the issues of the strategies to manage the traffic by investigating the occurrence probability of the danger zone lengths and manipulating the average speeds of the vehicles on the bridge. Practical guideline and countermeasure strategies are offered through the use of real time earthquake information. The results indicated that to increase current average travel speed, 45 km/h, on the bridge would make tremendous changes to mitigate causalities.