School of CE-ENSE Mapua Institute of Technology (MIT)

traffic streams/flows are made up of individual drivers and vehicles, interacting in unique ways with each other and with elements of the road and the general environment
a given traffic flow through streets and highways will vary by both location and time: non-uniform behavior due to varying driver behavior Describing traffic is considered difficult due to several factors that cause its irregularity or unpredictability: accidents, stalled vehicles, lane changing/swerving parking maneouvers, indescriminate loading and unloading of public utility vehicles

Types of Flow

Uninterrupted flow (flow occurring at long sections of road where vehicles are not required to stop by any cause external to the traffic stream Interrupted flow ( flow occuring at intersections or driveways where vehicles are required to stop by any cause outside traffic stream such as traffic sign, traffic signal light)

Traffic Flow Parameters

Macroscopic traffic flow parameters characterize traffic stream as a whole Traffic flow or volume Speed Density Microscopic traffic flow parameters characterize behavior of individual vehicles in the traffic stream with respect to each other Headway Spacing

Traffic Flow /Volume defined as the number of vehicles that pass a point on a highway, or a given lane or direction of a highway, during a specified time interval Unit: vehicles per unit time (ex. vehicles/hour or veh/hr or vph) Common interval: day q=N/T where q: flow or volume ; N: number of vehicles T: time ; if T is set to 1 hour, q is called volume, will have unit of vehicles per hour Ex 1: Suppose a 15-minute count of vehicles bound for Manila was conducted at a particular location in Quezon Ave. Summary is shown below. Estimate the flow rate in vehicles per hour.
Type Car/van Jeepney 15-minute count 420 300

Bus
Truck

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28
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Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT) = average 24-hr traffic volume at a given location over a full 365-day year AADT = (total number of vehicles passing the site in a year)/365 Average Annual Weekday Traffic (AAWT) = average 24-hr traffic volume occurring on weekdays over a full year AAWT = (total weekday traffic volume)/260 Average Daily Traffic (ADT) = average 24-hr traffic volume at a given location for some period of time less than a year = ADT may be measured for 6 months, a season, a month, a week or as little as 2 days Average Weekday Traffic (AWT) = average 24-hr traffic volume occurring on weekdays for some period of time less than 1 year, such as for a month or a season

if AADT > AAWT and ADT > AWT, this indicates weekend traffic is heavy and facility serves primarily for recreational traffic - volume varies throughout the day

Hourly Volumes
Peak-hour single hour of the day that has the highest hourly volume Peak-hour volume Directional volume flow directions are separated Used as basis of highway design and many types of operational analysis Highways must be designed to adequately serve the peak-hour traffic volume in the peak direction of flow (both directions of the road facility) Peak-hourly volumes are estimated from daily volume projections DDHV = AADT K D where DDHV = directional design hour volume (vph) AADT = average annual daily traffic (vpd) K = proportion of daily traffic occurring during the peak hour, expressed as a decimal D = proportion of peak-hour traffic traveling in the peak direction, expressed as a decimal

-Rate

of motion, in distance per unit time

u or s = (d /t) 3.6 where : U or S: speed of vehicle, in kilometer per hour d: distance, in meters t: time, vehicles has passed in seconds - Two types of Speed: Time Mean Speed & Space Mean Speed
Time Mean Speed (also called spot speed) - arithmetic mean of the speeds of vehicle passing a point within a given interval of time. um = (ui) / n ; where um: time mean speed, ui: speed, n: no of vehicles Ex 2: The speed of 25 cars were observed. 10 cars were noted to travel at 35kph, 8 cars at 40kph, 2 cars at 50kph, and 5 cars at 45kph. Assuming that each car was travelling at constant speed, determine the time mean speed.
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Space Mean Speed (also called harmonic mean speed) - used to describe the rate of movement of a traffic stream within a given section of road. - speed based on average travel time of vehicles in the stream within the section.
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If n vehicles are observed at an instant of time t, the space mean speed is computed as follows:
Us = n / (1/ui) ; where us: space mean speed, ui: speed, n: no of vehicles

Ex 3 (Same as Ex.2): The speed of 25 cars were observed. 10 cars were noted to travel at 35kph, 8 cars at 40kph, 2 cars at 50kph, and 5 cars at 45kph. Assuming that each car was travelling at constant speed, determine the space mean speed.

-Travel time = total time to traverse a given highway segment; includes stopped delays -Running time = total time during which the vehicle is in motion while traversing a given highway segment - does not include stopped delays -Average Travel Speed = distance of a given segment of road divided by average travel time on the given segment -Average Running Speed = distance of a given segment of road divided by average running on the given segment

Operating Speed = maximum safe speed at which a vehicle can be conducted in a given traffic stream, w/o exceeding the roads design speed Difficult to measure; it requires a test car driven through the traffic stream consistent with the definition Percentile Speed = speed below which the stated percent of vehicles in the traffic stream travel
Example: if 60 kph is the 85th-percentile speed = 85% of the vehicles in the traffic stream travel at or below 60 kph

85th percentile speed = often used as the maximum speed limits

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-No

of vehicles in a given length of road at an instant point in time. -If n vehicles are found within section L, density k is computed as K = n / L ; where k: density, n: no of vehicles, L: length -among three variables, density proves to be most difficult or expensive to observe. Aerial photography is the most commonly used method to get its exact values.

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Time Headway
- defined as the time interval between passage of consecutive vehicles at a specific point on the road with a unit of time per vehicle - inverse of flow rate or volume h= 1 / q where: h: ave. headway, q : flow rate or volume

Spacing
- distance between two vehicles measured from the front bumper of a vehicle to that of another - inverse of density sp = 1 / k where sp: ave. spacing, k: density

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Speed-Density relationship
u = uo[1-(k/kj)] k near zero (0):U=Uo=free-flow speed Uo = 0: k =kj =jam density (high density condition)

Volume-Density relationship
q

Uo

qm

kj

Veh/km
km k

EDIES MODEL [HOMBURGER (1982)]

Speed-Volume relationship
FREE-FLOW SPEED SEGMENT 1 MAX FREE
SEGMENT 2 VOLUME

volume um CAPACITY qm q

SPEED Us

uo

FLOW

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