01631168

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In modern cities, a gradual increase of motorcycles and other types of Powered Two-Wheelers (PTW) are observed as an answer to long commuting in traffic jams and complex urban navigation. Such increasing penetration of PTW creates mixed traffic flow conditions with unique characteristics that are not well understood. Unlike cars, PTWs filter between cars, have unique dynamics, and do not respect lanes discipline, therefore requiring a different modeling approach than traditional ’Passenger Car Equivalent’ or ’Follow the Leader’. Instead, this work proposes to model the flow of PTWs similarly to a fluid in a porous medium, where PTWs ’percolate’ between cars as function of the gap between them. The authors' contributions are as follows: (I) a characterization of the distribution of the gap between vehicles by the densities of PTWs and cars; (II) a definition of the equilibrium speed of each class as a function of the densities of PTWs and cars; (III) an impact analysis of the gradual penetration of PTWs on cars and on heterogeneous traffic flow characteristics.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AHB45 Standing Committee on Traffic Flow Theory and Characteristics.

01618707

17-05308

English

20p

2017

Transportation Research Board 96th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References; Tables

Automobiles; Gap acceptance; Motorcycles; Traffic density; Traffic flow; Traffic models; Vehicle mix

Multilane multiclass traffic flow

Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; Vehicles and Equipment

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2017 Paper #17-05308

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Dec 8 2016 12:05PM