Introductionto Traffic Engineering
Introductionto Traffic Engineering
Types of flow
a a
Time
• If N vehicles (represented by trajectories
crossing line a-a) passed this point in time T,
flow rate q may be expressed as:
N
q (1)
T
• In general, flow rate will have units like vehicle per minute, per
hour, or per day
Example 1
• A 15-minute count of vehicles bound for Adama was
conducted at a particular location on the express way. A
summary id shown in the table below:
TYPE 15-minure count
Car 420
Mini Bus 300
Bus 16
Truck 28
• Estimate the flow rate in vehicles per hour assuming the
count within the 15-min interval to be the same for the three
15-min intervals.
Speed
• Speed is defined as rate of motion in distance
per unit time.
• When describing traffic stream, two types of
speed are used:
– Time Mean Speed
– Space Mean Speed
Time Mean Speed (TMS)
• Also called as “Spot Speed”
• Is the arithmetic mean of the speeds of the vehicles passing a
point within a given interval of time
Figure: Measuring
spot speed using
trap-length method
u i
ut i 1
n
Example 2
• The speeds 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.
Space Mean Speed (SMS)
L nL
us n
n
t
i 1
i t
i 1
i
n
Example 3
• The speeds 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.
• The time mean speed is always higher than the space mean
speed. The difference between these speeds tends to
decrease as the absolute values of speeds increase. It has
been shown from field data that the relationship between
time mean speed and space mean speed can be given a
2
3
4
5
Distance
Time
• Using the same figure 1, the number of
vehicles counted at time t divided by the
length of the section L gives a measure
of density at that section.
n
k
L
• Among these three variables, density
proves to be the most difficult or
expensive to observe.
• Uses aerial photos
Measurement
• Density can easily be measured by remote sensing, but has
historically been difficult to measure
– Use occupancy obtained from loop-detectors
• TMS more easy to measure than SMS
– Use correction or approximation
– Easy to measure with remote sensing (GPS)
• Flow is easy to measure
• Occupancy is measure of density
• Only need to measure 2 of 3
Loop Detector
Freeway Monitoring
Other traffic variables
• Time Headway – is defined as the time interval between
passage of consecutive vehicles at a specified point on the
road with a unit of time per vehicle.
1
Time headway
2
3
4
5
Distance
a a
Time
• From figure, where N vehicles were counted
to pass line a-a within the observation time T,
let hi be the time headway 2 consecutive
vehicles
• The average headway representing all
observed vehicles is estimated using
arithmetic mean.
• If there are N vehicles observed, then there
will N-1 headways that will be measured.
N 1
• Time headway
h i
hi i 1
N 1
• For longer observation period:
N 1
T
• hi T and N 1 N
i 1
, or ht
N
• Therefore, the average time headway and flow rate are
related as follows:
1
ht
q
Example 4
• During the morning peak hour, the average headway of
Churchill bound bus is estimated at 5 minutes. If the
passenger demand during the same period is 240, determine
whether there is a need to increase the number of bus ( or
shorten the headway) for this route. Assume that passenger
demand is evenly distributed within that period and the
average load /occupancy is 14 passenger per bus.
Space Headway (spacing)
• Spacing is the distance between two vehicles measured from
the front bumper of a vehicle to that of another
• Similar to the estimation of time headway, if there are n
vehicles within a given road section L, the sum of (n-1) spacing
Si will be almost equal to L. Average spacing is therefore the
inverse of density:
1
s
k
Example 5
• During the heavy congestion, it was observed
that the average spacing of vehicles in queue
of a major highway is 6.5 meters. Determine
the jam density or density of stopped vehicles.
Relationship of flow, Speed and density
q k us (2)
Observed Relation
(South Luzon expressway Scatter plot)
Observed Relation
(South Luzon expressway Scatter plot)
Observed Relation
(South Luzon expressway Scatter plot)
Mathematical Relations
• Mathematical relationships describing traffic flow can be
classified into two general categories:
– Macroscopic
– Microscopic
• Theoretically, density is
not zero since atleast one
vehicle must be present
Example 6
• Data on density and speed were obtained from the
4-lane, 2-way rural highway (in one direction only):
Density, veh/km Speed, kph
75 45
15 85
142 10
100 30
dq 2k m
u f 1 0
dk k
j
kj
km
2
Volume-Speed relation
• From equation 2, it can also be shown that
us
k k j 1
u
f
kj uf k ju f
qmax km um
2 2 4
Correlations: Q, U, K
Q U
U 0.133 Best
0.180 Negative
Correlation!!!
K 0.119 -0.921
0.228 0.000
q u k
q 1.00
Best
Negative
u 0.13 1.00 Correlation!!!
Analysis of Variance
Source DF SS MS F P
Regression 1 55422 55422 573.17 0.000
Residual Error 102 9863 97
Total 103 65285
120
100
y = -1.4238x + 104.78
80 2
Speed (km/hr
R = 0.8489
60
40
20
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Density (veh/km)
SPEED, FLOW, AND DENSITY RELATIONSHIP
• A = 104,78
• B = -1,4238
• u = A + Bk 104,78 - 1,4238k
• q = Ak – Bk2 104,78k + 1,4238k2
• q = [u x (A-u)]/ B
[u x (104,78 – u)] / 1,4238
SPEED VS DENSITY
80
70
60
u = 104,78 – 1,4238k
Speed (km/hr)
50
40
30
20
10
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120
Density (veh/km)
FLOW VS DENSITY
2,500
q = 104,78k + 1,4238k2
2,000
Flow (veh/km)
1,500
1,000
500
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Density (veh/km)
SPEED VS FLOW
120
q = [u x (104,78-u)] / 1,4238
100
80
Speed (km/hr)
60
40
20
0
0 250 500 750 1,000 1,250 1,500 1,750 2,000 2,250 2,500
Flow (veh/hr)
SPEED VS DENSITY
80
70
60
u = 104,78 – 1,4238k
Speed (km/hr)
50
40
30
20
10
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120
Density (veh/km)
FLOW VS DENSITY
2,500
q = 104,78k + 1,4238k2
2,000
Flow (veh/km)
1,500
1,000
500
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Density (veh/km)
SPEED VS FLOW
120
q = [u x (104,78-u)] / 1,4238
100
80
Speed (km/hr)
60
40
20
0
0 250 500 750 1,000 1,250 1,500 1,750 2,000 2,250 2,500
Flow (veh/hr)