01595799

Component

In India, traffic on roads is highly mixed in nature with widely varying static and dynamic characteristics of vehicles. Also, vehicles do not follow strict lane discipline and occupy any available lateral position on the road space. In most of the cities in India, mixed traffic is dominated by high proportion of motorcycles. Under these conditions, expressing traffic volume in terms of Passenger Car Unit (PCU)by considering passenger car as the standard vehicle will be inappropriate. This study investigates the methodology developed by Minh et al. (2009)to estimate the Motorcycle Unit (MCU) by considering dynamic characteristics of moving vehicles such as speed and effective space. The concept of MCU values was introduced by considering motorcycle as the basic vehicle in the traffic flow. Data for this study was collected on mid-block sections of four-lane divided urban roads located inIndia, where motorcycle proportion is highly dominant. MCU is expressed as the relationship between speeds and effective spaces with respect to motorcycles and other types of vehicles. The effective spaces between the subject vehicle and surrounding vehicles were obtained and it was found that the effective space of each vehicle increases with the increase in speed of vehicles. Also, it was found that MCU is a function of the mean speed and mean effective space of each type of vehicle. The estimated MCU values for car, auto rickshaw, bus, and LCV (light commercial vehicle) were 2.26, 1.81, 6.41 and 3.20, respectively. These values were validated with previously developed methods and found that adopted methodology is accurately determining the MCU values for different types of vehicles in mixed traffic that dominated by motorcycles on mid-block sections of urban roads. The findings obtained from this research can be used to develop the speed-flow relationship, estimate highway capacity and formulate effective traffic control and management measures

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ABE90 Standing Committee on Transportation in the Developing Countries. Alternate title: Estimation of Motorcycle Unit for Motorcycle-Dominated Mixed Traffic on Urban Roads in India.

01584066

16-6334

English

15p

2016

Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References; Tables

Methodology; Motorcycles; Speed; Traffic volume; Vehicle mix

India

Data and Information Technology; Highways; Vehicles and Equipment

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2016 Paper #16-6334

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Jan 12 2016 6:48PM