This is how the roundabout that will allow you to exit the University of Alicante campus at first attempt works

The University of Alicante wants to end one of the biggest hurdles the campus faces: the complete detour around the premises by car to enter and exit its facilities. To this end, the institution will undertake the construction of an internal roundabout that will allow choosing between accessing the university from the highway roundabout or making a turn to exit directly without having to cross the campus.

The creation of this internal roundabout at UA aims to avoid having to take a full turn around the campus when only accessing it to transport other people such as children, friends, or colleagues, while reducing CO2 emissions on the university premises, explained Vice-Rector for Infrastructure, Sustainability, and Occupational Safety, Salvador Ivorra, on Tuesday.

The design of this roundabout—drafted by Civil Engineer Jaime Alonso—is the result of proposals selected by a large majority for execution within the 2024 participatory budgets and will represent an "improvement for traffic and sustainability," also noted Rector Amparo Navarro during the project presentation.

The execution of the roundabout is scheduled for August next year, which is the month with the least traffic influx, and its total material execution cost is estimated at 200,000 euros. Additionally, the works also include the execution of a new loading and unloading road with capacity for six vehicles in the area near the bus parking lot at this exit.

This area will have a rough surface, different in color from conventional asphalt, and will be separated by a hedge from the two lanes that directly exit the university towards the roundabout. Additionally, the intervention design includes a merging lane from parking lot number 1 to the UA access lane to allow a quick exit from UA. Initially, it is planned to keep that exit closed and only use it in situations where evacuation of that parking lot is required.

The proposal for creating this roundabout was made by Ramón Maestre López-Salazar, Eduardo Gras Moreno, and Enrique Aparicio Arias, all professors from the Department of Graphic Expression, Composition, and Projects at the Higher Polytechnic School (EPS). After its approval, work has been done throughout this year on its development and for this purpose preliminary traffic counts have been conducted to understand the traffic entering the university during certain hours of the day.

With these preliminary results, a security camera system was designed to conduct an appropriate count by knowing the number of vehicles that enter, exit, and cross the campus in 15-minute intervals near UA's security service.

From that moment on and with that information, according to Vice-Rector Ivorra, Traffic Engineering simulation techniques were applied to study various alternatives and their possible interaction or generation of traffic jams at campus entrances and exits in search of the most favorable option that would allow a loading-unloading area. In this task, professors from the Department of Civil Engineering Luis Bañón and Luis Rodríguez, both Civil Engineers specialized in Roads, Canals, and Ports, collaborated.