Capacity Analysis Under Mixed Traffic Conditions

Capacity Analysis under Mixed Traffic Conditions
First Semester Progress Report
By
D. Abhigna
Ph.D. Scholar
Roll No. 701401
Under the Supervision of
Dr. K.V.R. Ravi Shankar

Assistant Professor
Department of Civil Engineering
Transportation Division
Department of Civil Engineering
National Institute of Technology
Warangal-506004, Telangana, India
July 2014
1. Introduction
The capacity of a facility is the maximum hourly rate at which persons or vehicles reasonably
can be expected to traverse a point or a uniform section of a lane or roadway during a given
time period under prevailing roadway, traffic, and control conditions (Transportation
Research Board, 2000). Quality of service requires quantitative measures to characterize
operational conditions within a traffic stream. Level of Service (LOS) is a quality measure
describing operational conditions within a traffic stream, generally in terms of such service
measures as speed and travel time, freedom to manoeuvre, traffic interruptions, and comfort
and convenience (Transportation Research Board, 2000). Six LOS are defined for each type
of facility starting from A to F, with LOS A representing the best operating conditions and
LOS F the worst operating conditions. The service flow rate is the maximum hourly rate at
which persons or vehicles reasonably can be expected to traverse a point or uniform segment
of a lane or roadway during a given period under prevailing roadway, traffic, and control
conditions while maintaining a designated level of service (Transportation Research Board,
2000).
The following are the factors on which capacity depends:
1. Traffic Factors:
2. Roadway Factors:
3. Control and Weather conditions:
Under mixed traffic conditions, the static and dynamic characteristics of slow and fast moving
vehicles vary considerably and reduces the capacity of the road. In order to estimate the traffic
volume and capacity under mixed traffic conditions, it is very much essential to convert all
the vehicle types into a common unit. Since the proportion of cars is higher in most of the
countries, all the vehicle types are expressed in terms of the Passenger Car Unit (PCU) by
considering the static and dynamic characteristics of each vehicle type. PCU represent the
equivalent traffic impedance of various types of vehicles as compared with a value of unity
for the passenger car. Within a mixed traffic situation, where different types of vehicles share
the same roadway space without any physical segregation, the amount of interaction is
expected to change with the traffic mix characteristics. Heterogeneous traffic consists of
different type of vehicles which have its own physical and operational characteristics. Some
of the works carried out in India are reported below.
1
2. Literature Review
Ramanayya (1988) observed that the standards used for estimating the capacity followed in
US cannot be applied directly for heterogeneous traffic condition prevailing in India. They
also mentioned that for any type of vehicle the equivalent design vehicle unit changes with the
level of service and composition. They developed a simulation model for depicting the road
traffic behaviour under mixed traffic conditions. They found that the equivalent design
vehicle unit for different vehicle types increases with increase in percentage of slow moving
vehicles for a given Level of service. They derived service volumes for three different LOS
Arasan and Koshy (2005) developed a simulation model for the heterogeneous traffic flow
with wide variations in the static and dynamic characteristics of vehicles. They considered
entire width of the road as a single unit. During the simulation, the absence of the lane
discipline in the mixed traffic flow was considered. For simulation, the length and width of
the road can be varied and the positions of the vehicles were represented by coordinate with
respect to origin. C++ programming language was used for model implementation. For the
simulation process, three steps were considered: vehicle generation, vehicle placement and
vehicle movement for the mid-block section of urban road. For the vehicle generation, they
used headway distribution. Finally the model was used to study the flow characteristics on the
urban road.
Patel and Joshi (2012) studied the traffic flow behaviour of mixed traffic stream and capacity
was determined based on speed and flow rate on access controlled urban arterial in suraj city
in Gujarat state in India and also to establish LOS for existing traffic conditions. They used
Artificial Neural network for simulating the unobserved data. Cluster analysis methods and
validation parameters were used on ATS data for classification of urban streets and LOS
Categories. The volume to capacity ratio (V/C) range for LOS is obtained by cluster method.
They found that the capacity of roadway (3 lanes, one direction) is 7450 vehicles per lane.
The results were useful for quality of traffic for access controlled urban arterials under mixed
traffic conditions.
3. Summary of Literature
Several works are reported to determine the highway capacity by analysing both the
homogeneous and heterogeneous traffic conditions. From the literature review, it can be
2
observed that the procedure for determining the capacity, the traffic conditions used in
developed countries cannot be directly used for traffic conditions in India. Many studies have
been done through microscopic simulation model for analysing the behaviour of the traffic
flow. Speed-Flow-Density relationships are widely being used in the literature to determine
the capacity of highway and require traffic flow data collected from the field. Many studies
have proven that the speed-flow relationship is considered to be better for representing the
behaviour of traffic flow.
4. Progress Report of the Research Work
Name of the Student : D. Abhigna

Roll No. : 701401
Field of Research work : Capacity Analysis under Mixed Traffic Conditions
Status of Work
a) Progress in the Last Six Months:

The following two courses have been completed in the first semester on self study
basis:
S. No. Course Name Credits
Traffic Flow Modelling and Simulation Techniques 4

1
Traffic Operations and Highway Capacity Analysis 4

2
English for Scientific Communication -

3
b) Plan for the Next Semester

1. Course – 3 on self study basis “Advanced Mathematical Modelling for Traffic
Engineering”,
2. Literature review,and
3. Identifying specific objectives.
3
5. References
1) Arasan, V.T., and Arkatkar, S.S. (2010). “Microsimulation study of effect of volume and
road width on PCU of vehicles under heterogeneous traffic.” Journal of Transportation
Engineering, 136(12), 1110-1119.
2) Arasan, V.T., and Dhivya, G. (2008). “Measuring heterogeneous traffic density.” World
Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, 46, 342-346.
3) Arasan, V.T., and Koshy, R.Z. (2005). “Methodology for modelling highly heterogeneous
traffic flow.” Journal of Transportation Engineering, 131(7), 544-551.
4) Chandra, S. (2004). “Effect of road roughness on capacity of two-lane roads.” Journal of

Transportation Engineering, 130(3), 360-364.
5) Chandra, S. (2004). “Capacity estimation procedure for two-lane roads under mixed
traffic conditions.” Journal of Indian Roads Congress, 498, 139-170.
Forwarded by DSC Members
1) Prof. Deva Pratap (Head of the Department and Chairman)
2) Dr. K.V.R. Ravi Shankar (Supervisor)
3) Prof. C.S.R.K. Prasad (Member)
4) Prof. N.V. Uma Mahesh (Member)
5) Prof. N. Subramanyam (Member) `

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Capacity Analysis under Mixed Traffic Conditions

First Semester Progress Report

Under the Supervision of

Dr. K.V.R. Ravi Shankar

The following are the factors on which capacity depends:

4. Progress Report of the Research Work

Name of the Student : D. Abhigna

a) Progress in the Last Six Months:

S. No. Course Name Credits

Traffic Flow Modelling and Simulation Techniques 4

Traffic Operations and Highway Capacity Analysis 4

English for Scientific Communication -

b) Plan for the Next Semester

3. Identifying specific objectives.

4) Chandra, S. (2004). “Effect of road roughness on capacity of two-lane roads.” Journal of

Forwarded by DSC Members

1) Prof. Deva Pratap (Head of the Department and Chairman)

2) Dr. K.V.R. Ravi Shankar (Supervisor)

3) Prof. C.S.R.K. Prasad (Member)

4) Prof. N.V. Uma Mahesh (Member)

5) Prof. N. Subramanyam (Member) `

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