The aim of the Fourth Generation Highway Concession in Colombia is interconnecting the major cities of the country and these with river and sea ports and borders.

Ibagué – Puerto Salgar – Girardot corridor (200km) is an important North to South trunk road (Magdalena River trunk road) connecting the South of the country from Santana (Putumayo) with the North of the country at the Municipality of Puerto Salgar, specifically in the Korán area, achieving connectivity with the Ruta del Sol project.

The approach of the work focused on achieving the following key objectives:

• Analysis of existing information and design of fieldwork (vehicle counts and Origin-Destination surveys).
• Building a network model in EMME 3 to estimate the potential demand for the new concession
• Identifying possible future actions that may affect traffic capture.
• Estimating the future traffic to assess the concessionaire’s revenues in the context of limited funding resources in the international market.

The interest in obtaining accurate estimates of traffic demand lay in two reasons: To provide the customer with a solid basis on which to raise financial models for the concession tender; and perform a risk analysis of the project from the point of view of the demand of the road, with regard to income.