Risk and uncertainty in civil engineering – why it was so

difficult to predict real traffic on POZNAN BY-PASS A2

Prepared by: Magdalena Majchrzak

Student ID number: 130154
Supervisor by: Dr Piotr Nowotarski
Forecasts are ‘always’ wrong

Forecasts are critical part of any planning of the future strategy or business plan. The
common forecasting mechanism is that firstly we look to the past to see what’s been
happening and project this ahead with some adjustments. This often ends up by under
projecting or over projecting the real future situation. Decision makers often have to make a
choice between various solutions which will have a huge impact in the future. They base
their knowledge on forecasts made by experts who unfortunately make false assumption:
that things will go on as they are. They don’t take into consideration multiple different
solutions and uncertainty about the future. The past has shown that this strategy basing on
the simple predictions almost always ended up with the opposite.

The great horse manure crisis of 1894

One of my favorite example of

doom prophecy, connected with
the transportation field, is so
called “The great horse manure
crisis of 1894”. Till the end of the
19th century all transport,
whether of goods or people, was
drawn by horses. One can think
that if there were no cars on the
streets or any other mechanical
mode of transportation, streets
were much more cleaner than
today and the air was more fresh Photo of Pyrmont Bridge, Sydney about 1904, showing the
amount of horses on the streets.
and less polluted. Nothing more Source: http://bytesdaily.blogspot.com/2011/07/great-horse-
wrong about this vision. The manure-crisis-of-1894.html
biggest problem about
transportation performed only by horses was that all these horses produced huge amounts
of manure. On average, one horse can produce between 6 and 16 kg of manure per day.
Taking into consideration all horses used for transportation back then, we obtain an
unimaginable number of manure. As an example, in New York in 1900, the population of
100,000 horses produced 2.5 million pounds (~ 1,150,000 kg) of horse manure per day [1].
The manure flooded the market, so that farmers were paid to take it. Dead and rotting
horses littered the streets. All this attracted massive numbers of flies which spread typhoid
fever and other diseases [2]. It drove most observers to despair.

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 “In 50 years, every street in
London will be buried under
nine feet (~ 2,74 m) of manure.”
— The headline which appeared
in the newspaper The Times in
1894 [2].

In 1898 the first international urban-planning conference convened in New York. One topic
dominated discussion: manure. Cities all over the world were experiencing the same
problem. Instead of the scheduled ten days, it was abandoned after three days, because
none of the delegates could see any solution to the growing manure crisis [1]. The forecasts
about ‘getting drowned’ in horse manure were so realistic and seemed so certain that no
one thought that during next years the whole transportation field will turn upside down and
almost all horses will disappear from streets.

First change came when new energy sources as powering subways, trolleys, buses, trucks,
and cars replaced horses. The first electrified underground urban railway opened in 1890 in
London. Another huge step was invention of the car with combustion engine. At the
beginning it didn’t seem that it can solve the whole problem. But with each day, cars were
getting cheaper and more profitable to own and operate than horse-drawn vehicles, both
for the individual and for society. In 1900, 4,192 cars were sold in the US; by 1912 that
number had risen to 356,000. In 1912, traffic counts in New York showed more cars than
horses for the first time [3]. The whole “manure” crisis has been resolved.

Flaw of Averages

Flaw of averages is a fundamental problem in the design and evaluation of projects. The
simple pattern of designing, which often starts with evaluating projects based on the
“average” or “most likely” future forecasts derives from misunderstanding of probability and
systems behavior. The error consists of assuming analyses based on “average” or “most
likely” conditions give correct answers, which is of course wrong. In reality, design inputs like
costs and context (e.g. demand for product) are uncertain and have its own distribution. We
don’t have to look centuries back to witness transportation “crisis”. Inventing cars didn’t
solve all of the problems connected with transportation. It created new ones. One of an
example of it, was under projecting of the traffic in the Poznan Bypass A2 and necessity of its
expansion after less than 20 years. It really doesn’t take a long for the situation to change
completely.

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Poznań Bypass A2

The A2 motorway in Poland, officially

named Autotrada Wolności ( Motorway of
Freedom), runs from the Polish – German
border in Świecko/Frankfurt (connection to
A12 Autobahn), through Poznań and Łódź to
Warsaw and in the future, to the Polish –
Belarusian border Terespol/Brest
(connecting to M1 highway). The motorway
is a part of the European route E30
connecting Berlin and Moscow. The
motorway between German border and
Warsaw was constructed in years 2001-
2012 [7].

In October 2000 the Polish minister for transport and marine economy announced that a
concession agreement had been signed which defined the financial plan for the construction
of the A2 Nowy Tomysl to Konin section of the A2 motorway in Poland [6]. This part consists
of the section between Poznań Komorniki and Poznań Krzesiny. It was completed and
opened on the 13th of September 2003. The investment was made by GDDKiA, AWSA has
maintained the bypass. [5].

The extension of Poznan Bypass A2

Photo showing the traffic in Poznan Bypass A2
before the extension.
Source: https://gloswielkopolski.pl/autostrada-a2-przed-wezlem-
poznan-lubon-doszlo-do-kolizji-tworza-sie-bardzo-duze-korki/ar/c16-
14414767
into 6 lines was caused mainly by
huge traffic in this area. About 65
thousand vehicles drive in the
bypass daily, meaning that almost 23
million drivers use the bypass during
the year. No one could know that
during 10 years after opening this
part of the road, it will become so
crowded. As a result, in 2013 having
taken knowledge of such high traffic
flow, Autostrada Wielkopolska SA as
the Bypass manager in agreement
with General Directorate of National
Roads and Motorways (GDDKiA)
took up steps aiming at the
extension of the Bypass by building
the third traffic lane.

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In 2018 AWSA has published a contract notice regarding the addition of a third lane and
reinforcing the road construction of the A2 motorway. Interested parties had time until 10
August to submit their applications. It was planned to start the investment in 2019 and it
was predict to take about 1.5 years [5].

The map is showing the part of the road that has been extended.
Source: https://www.auto-swiat.pl/wiadomosci/aktualnosci/trzeci-pas-na-poznanskiej-
autostradzie-a2-gotowy/ggtsr0l

It’s worth highlighting that the whole extension of the Poznań motorway Bypass was the first
project of such complexity ever implemented in the motorway “under traffic” in Poland.
Traffic continued to use the northern and southern carriageways with the drivers having two
lanes available in each direction plus emergency lanes [4].

The Temporary Traffic Organization Scheme.

Source: https://www.aesa.pl/en/news/news-2019/

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From 20th December 2019, drivers driving between Poznań Komorniki and Poznań Krzesiny
have three lanes available in both directions. Autostrada Wielkopolska SA after 277 days of
intensive work, six months earlier than originally assumed, finished work in this part of the
road.

Photo after finishing the works

Source: https://www.gazeta-mosina.pl/2019/autostrada-a2-ma-trzy-pasy/

The whole undertaking cost a lot of work of engineers of multiple fields and required
cooperation of them. Adding an extra lane in each direction highly increased the capacity of
this important part of the the A2 motorway in Poland.

Flexibility in civil engineering

We can’t simply predict the future. Even if some fortune teller claims they know what will
happen, we shouldn't believe in that. The number of wrong forecasts is almost as huge as
the number of all forecasts. The idea of flexibility in civil engineering is to build up buildings,
roads, bridges etc. that are not an answer to any prediction but that can be changed
regarding to how the future really looks. The more designers will take into consideration
various situations the easier will be to design flexible buildings, which according to the
situation, demand and costs can be expanded or changed later.

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Bibliography:

1. https://fee.org/articles/the-great-horse-manure-crisis-of-1894/
2. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/06/13/hopeful-news-for-us-from-the-horse-manure-
crisis-of-1894/
3. http://bytesdaily.blogspot.com/2011/07/great-horse-manure-crisis-of-1894.html
4. https://www.aesa.pl/en/news/news-2019/
5. https://newsbeezer.com/polandeng/there-will-be-a-third-lane-on-the-poznan-bypass-the-
contractor-is-looking-for-it/
6. https://www.roadtraffic-technology.com/projects/a2_toll_motorway/
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A2_autostrada_(Poland)