01631689

Component

https://doi.org/10.3141/2615-10

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.

01628078

17-04304

English

pp 82–94

2017

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board

9780309442040

Digital/other

Figures (7) ; Photos; References (27) ; Tables (5)

Highway capacity; Level of service; Multilane highways; Passenger car equivalence; Urban areas

Area occupancy; Heterogeneous traffic; Volume capacity ratio

India

Highways; Operations and Traffic Management

PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Dec 8 2016 11:38AM

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• Calibrating Vissim to Analyze Delay at Signalized Intersections
• Car Drivers’ Experienced Level of Service on Freeways
• Estimating the Effects of Urban Street Incidents on Capacity
• Estimation of Saturation Headway in Work Zones on Urban Streets
• Evaluation and Testing of Driver-Assistive Truck Platooning: Phase 2 Final Results
• How Weather Events Affect Freeway Demand Patterns
• Influence of Remotely Operated Stop–Slow Controls on Driver Behavior in Work Zones
• Measuring Performance on Two-Lane Highways: Empirical Investigation
• Modeling Pedestrian Delays at Signalized Intersections as a Function of Crossing Directions and Moving Paths
• Naturalistic Study of Truck Following Behavior
• Operational Analysis of a Single-Lane Roundabout with a Mix of Driverless Vehicles
• Optimizing and Modeling Tollway Operations Using Microsimulation: Case Study Sanand Toll Plaza, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
• Preparing Oregon for Connected Vehicle Deployment: Application Prioritization Process
• Proposed Framework for Evaluating Spillback in the Highway Capacity Manual
• Queue Length at Signalized Intersections from Red-Time Formula and the Highway Capacity Manual Compared with Field Data
• Relationship Between Cycle Overflow Probability and Capacity at Signalized Intersections: Application for Delay Estimation