scholarly journals ESTIMATION OF PASSENGER CAR UNITS FOR HETEROGENEOUS TRAFFIC CONDITION USING VEHICULAR SPEED AND COMPOSITION AT MID – BLOCK SECTION

Author(s):  
Raj Pratap Singh ◽  
Himanshu Tekwani ◽  
Bhavesh Joshi ◽  
Pratheek Sudhakaran ◽  
Jitendra Singh

The knowledge of traffic volume is an important basic input required for planning, analysis and operation of roadway systems. A significant effort has been made in order to study the Traffic Volume of Dadabari Chauraha. For better understanding of the present status of traffic flow at the junction, traffic survey is conducted. The safe and time efficient movement of the people and goods is dependent on Traffic flow, which is directly connected to the traffic characteristics. In Traffic Flow we have to consider generally three parameters, Volume, Speed, and Capacity. While as a traffic volume may be defined as the number of vehicles passing a given section of road or traffic lane per unit time will be inappropriate when several types of vehicles with widely varying static and dynamic characteristics are comprised in the traffic. Due to mixed nature of traffic it gets difficult to accommodate all the kinds of traffic on these roads. The basic problem arises during the peak hours of the day when the traffic volume is highest on the road. The interaction between moving vehicles under such heterogeneous traffic condition is highly complex. The problem of measuring volume of such kind of traffic has been addressed by converting the different types of vehicles into equivalent passenger cars and expressing the volume in terms of Passenger Car Unit (PCU) per hour. Calculation of Passenger Car Units (PCU’s) for different vehicle types had been made. For a wide range of traffic volume and roadway conditions indicate that the PCU value of a vehicle significantly changes with change in traffic volume and width of roadway. some of the remedial measures to improve the traffic safety in the region such as widening the road, changing 4-lane to 6-lane or by providing more public transport can be recommended based on the outcomes of the work.


2016 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Geetimukta Mahapatra ◽  
Akhilesh Kumar Maurya ◽  
Anil Minhans

Safe driving can be achieved by prevention of risky situations which requires the knowledge of the vehicle dynamics and road geometry. The Indian traffic condition is heterogeneous in nature and has weak lane discipline. Hence, vehicles interactions takes place laterally also along with their longitudinal interaction. Vehicles lateral movements (interactions) are quite high due to absence of lane discipline. Therefore, the lateral acceleration of vehicles are an important variable which characterizes the corresponding vehicle dynamics. Several studies have been done by various authors on lateral acceleration in curves, however, lateral movement study of vehicles on straight road section is also important to analyze vehicles’ maneuver in such traffic (i.e. traffic stream with weak lane discipline). Therefore, the present study is about the observation of lateral movements of vehicles over different types of roads in three metropolitan cities of India (Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune) under moderate traffic conditions. Lateral acceleration variation of five different types of vehicles (SUV cars, Sedan cars, Hutch Back cars, motorized three wheeler and two wheeler) have been recorded to investigate its relationship with vehicles longitudinal characteristics (i.e. longitudinal speed) in Indian heterogeneous and weak lane disciplined traffic. Lateral acceleration values quickly rises with initial increase in speed afterward lateral acceleration values reduces with further increase in vehicles longitudinal speed.  Impact of vehicle type and locations on the lateral maneuvering of vehicles have also been studied


Author(s):  
Raunak Mishra ◽  
Pallav Kumar ◽  
Shriniwas S. Arkatkar ◽  
Ashoke Kumar Sarkar ◽  
Gaurang J. Joshi

This research was aimed at developing an area occupancy–based method for estimating passenger car unit (PCU) values for vehicle categories under heterogeneous traffic conditions on multilane urban roads for a wide range of traffic flow levels. First, PCU values of vehicle categories were determined according to the Transport and Road Research Laboratory definition and replaced the commonly considered measure of performance speed with area occupancy using simulation. The PCU values obtained were found to be significantly different for different volume-to-capacity ratios; this result shows that the PCU value is dynamic in nature. While the dynamic nature of PCU values is well appreciated, practitioners may prefer a single set of optimized PCU values (unique for each vehicle category). Hence, a new method with a matrix solution was proposed to estimate the optimized or unique set of PCU values with area occupancy as the performance measure. To check the credibility of the proposed method, the estimated PCU values were compared from existing guidelines regulated by the Indian Roads Congress (IRC) and values estimated with the widely accepted dynamic PCU concept of speed–area ratio. Results show that the PCU values suggested by IRC and the dynamic PCU concept using the speed–area ratio underestimate and overestimate the flows, respectively, at different traffic volumes. However, the values obtained with the area-occupancy concept were found to be consistent with the traffic flow in a cars-only traffic situation at different flow conditions. The derived set of optimized PCU values proposed can be useful for traffic engineers, researchers, and practitioners for capacity and level-of-service analysis under heterogeneous traffic conditions.


Author(s):  
Sabyasachi Biswas ◽  
Souvik Chakraborty ◽  
Indrajit Ghosh ◽  
Satish Chandra

Saturation flow is one of the most important functional parameters at signalized intersections. It is to be noted that saturation flow is a functional measure of the intersection operation, which indicates the probable capacity if working in an ideal situation. However, determination of the saturation flow is a challenging task in developing countries like India where vehicles with diverse static and dynamic characteristics use the same carriageway. At the same time, it is influenced by several other factors. In this context, the present research is carried out to examine the effects of traffic composition, approach width and right-turning movements on saturation flow under heterogeneous traffic conditions. This paper proposes a model for computing saturation flow at the signalized intersection under mixed traffic condition based on Kriging approach. A detailed comparison of the mean saturation flow values obtained by the conventional method, regression method, and Kriging method has also been presented. Low mean absolute percentage error values (<5%) have been obtained for saturation flow by Kriging method with respect to the conventional method. Finally, the proposed models are used to evaluate the impact of right-turning vehicles on saturation flow under shared lane condition.


2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (7) ◽  
pp. 593-598 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mithun Mohan ◽  
Satish Chandra

Traffic in developing countries is often distinguished from others for its diversity in vehicular composition and passenger car equivalents (PCE) becomes essential in such conditions for expressing traffic volume in terms of equivalent number of passenger cars. The PCE estimation at two-way stop-controlled intersections in developing countries is further complicated by the lack of movement priority and lane discipline. The study introduces a method to find PCE factors based on the time taken by a queue of vehicles to completely clear the intersection and composition of the queue. The method is validated through simulations in VISSIM software and was then used to derive PCE factors for three intersections in India. Although the method is developed and tested to estimate PCE factors under highly heterogeneous traffic at priority junctions in India, it is quite general in nature and can be used in traffic conditions found in developed countries as well.


Author(s):  
Tanumoy Ghosh ◽  
Sudip Kumar Roy ◽  
Subhamay Gangopadhyay

The behavior of a driver of any vehicle is important in estimating heterogeneous traffic conditions with no strict lane discipline. In the present study, a micro-simulation model is used to analyze the mixed traffic condition with different drivers’ behavior parameters. The field data collected on traffic flow characteristics of multilane highways are used in the calibration and validation of the simulation model. Out of the ten coefficient of correlation (CC) parameters in the simulation model, five are used in the present study to make a model of simulation for heterogeneous traffic; the other five parameters are not considered for testing their influence on simulated capacity values as they represent very typical behavior of a driver, either in car-following, or in free-flow conditions. Two separate simulation models are made by changing the CC (CC0, CC1, CC2, CC7, and CC8) parameters, each for a four-lane divided and a six-lane divided highway as the geometric conditions of the roads and the traffic flow is different for both the cases. These models are then applied on two other sections of a four-lane divided and a six-lane divided highway to validate the parameters of the model developed earlier for other sections.


2013 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hassan, S. A. ◽  
Hounsell, N. B. ◽  
Shrestha, B. P.

Puffin crossing is the most recent signalised crossings in UK. The operation of Puffin signal control is mainly based on traffic condition hence could impose longer waiting time on pedestrian. Therefore there is a need to review on the operation of the signal control strategy of Puffin crossings to make it more pedestrian responsive without imposing significant delay to other road users. Research to date has shown that VISSIM model is more suitable for the evaluation of signal control improvement.  The latest signal controlled pedestrian crossing facility, the Puffin, has been modelled and tested in VISSIM micro-simulation model. The objective of this study is to verify the Puffin coding using VISSIM microsimulation software. It is to ensure that the Puffin signal control in VISSIM is working as in a real traffic condition. For this purpose a suitable mid-block section was selected at Market Street, United Kingdom. Pedestrians' characteristics, vehicular characteristics, geometric layout of the site were retrieved from video recording. All these characteristics were coded in Puffin model using VISSIM micro-simulation. The results proved that the Puffin model in VISSIM is able to reproduce site representative condition.  The findings in this study are significant in the whole modelling process.


2017 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 985-992 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonu Mathew ◽  
Ashish Dhamaniya ◽  
S.S. Arkatkar ◽  
Gaurang Joshi

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