CE3121 Transportation Engineering

6. Traffic Flow Fundamentals (2)

Instructor: Dr. Liu Yang

Semester 1, 2019/2020 Academic Year

Outline
3. Highway capacity analysis
 Capacity
 Level of Service

4. Traffic Measurements
 Measuring techniques
 Inductive loop detectors
 Vehicle Classification

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Highway Capacity And Level Of Service
 Same freeway section offers different operational quality
of service to drivers (and passengers) depending on the
congestion level.
 This section describes the definitions of and concepts
relating to capacity and level of service.
 It focuses on level of service of uninterrupted flow
(normal flow) transportation facilities: freeways and
highways.
 Interrupted traffic flow (forced flow) facilities, such as
signalized intersections, will be dealt in Section 8.

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Categories in HCM
 Uninterrupted flow facilities
 Freeways
 Multilane highways
 Two-lane highways
 Interrupted flow facilities
 Signalized intersections
 Unsignalized intersections
 Urban streets
 Other road users
 Transit
 Pedestrians
 Bicycles
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 Highway Capacity
 Definition of highway capacity
(HCM2000)
The maximum hourly rate at which
persons or vehicles can reasonably be
expected to traverse a point or uniform
section of a lane or roadway during a
given time period under prevailing
roadway, traffic, and control conditions.
 Importance of Highway
Capacity
 Provides the service rate μ in
queuing analysis
 A parameter value in the link
performance function
 Serves as a basis for level of service
(LOS) evaluation
 Determines whether the supply of a
highway facility is capable of meeting
the travel demand.
The capacity of a highway will never be
exceeded. Even at below capacity, a
highway still may experience congestion.
⇒ need to consider level of service
(LOS)
Level of Service
 Quality of service perceived by drivers (and passengers).
 Level of Service (LOS) – a qualitative way of describing
the operating conditions of a highway at flow below
capacity.
 Although speed is a major concern of the motorists using
a facility, it remains nearly over a wide range of flows.
 Freedom to maneuver within the traffic stream and
proximity to other vehicles are equally important and are
used, in preference over speed, in describing the level of
service.
 Beside, density provides a better measure of effectiveness.

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Level of Service
 LOS is described in A, B, C, D, E and F “grades”. The cut-
offs are usually based on density.

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Level of Service

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Level of Service for Freeways

Much easier for traffic engineers to use density to measure LOS

Also the q=ku relationship binds all three parameters.
Normal vs. Forced Flow – LOS Classification

u-q relationship
for ideal freeway

Capacity
Normal flow region (2000-2300
pcu/hr/ln)

Forced flow
region
 Level of Service for Freeways
LOS Description
A Free flow. Users are unaffected by the presence of others.
Freedom to select travel speed and manoeuvre is extremely high.
B Stable flow. Presence of other users noticeable. Slight decline in
freedom to manoeuvre but desired speed relatively unaffected.
C Stable flow, but operation becomes affected by other users. Travel
speed becomes affected. Manoeuvre requires some effort.
D High density but still stable flow. Speed and freedom to
manoeuvre severely restricted.
E Near capacity. Speed restively slow, but uniform among all users.
Freedom to manoeuvre extremely difficult, depends on others to
“give way”. Operation unstable. A slight increase in flow will cause
“breakdown”.
F Forced or breakdown flow. Demand exceeds capacity. Queue
formation. Stop-and-go condition.
6.3 Traffic Measurements
 The FHWA publication number FHWA-PL-98-035, Travel
Time Data Collection Handbook, dated March 1998,
prepared by the Texas Transportation Institute provides a
complete overview of techniques for gathering travel-
time data (see https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/start.pdf).
 The mechanics of employing many of these techniques
are described in the Institute of Transportation Engineers
publication, Manual of Transportation Engineering Studies,
Edited by H. Douglas Robertson, 2000. The Transportation
Research Board Publication, Highway Capacity Manual,
2000 also provides some limited guidance on travel time,
speed, and delay data collection in the appendices to
Chapters 15 and 16 of the manual.
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6.3 Measuring Travel Time and Speed
There are numerous speed and travel-time measuring
techniques, but they can all be grouped into three large
categories according to their method of sampling the travel-time
universe.
 Spot speed measurement techniques measure vehicle speeds
only for a given point of geography or a given point of time.
 Vehicle tracing techniques measure vehicle travel times only
for a select portion of all trips (e.g., floating car and GPS
tracking).
 Trip maker tracking techniques are similar to vehicle tracing
techniques but measure traveler trip times rather than vehicle
trip times (e.g., travel diary in household survey, Cell phone
sighting data AirSage data, GPS data)
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Spot Speed Measurement
 Spot speed measurement techniques
use roadside sensors to measure the
instantaneous speeds of vehicles
either at specific spots of the
roadway or at specific times of the Police Speed Laser Camera
day.
 These techniques are very cost-
effective at gathering large amounts Fixed
of speed data for specific segments of Speed
Camera
the transportation system but cannot
provide door-to-door travel times.

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Roadside Sensors
Roadside sensors:
 In-the-road loop detectors
 Roadside radar
 Microwave sensors
 Video sensors
 Infrared sensors

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Basic measurement device: inductive
loop detector
 An insulated, electrically conducting loop installed in the
pavement
 It functions as a tuned electrical circuit and it detects
vehicle passing or presence because vehicle induces eddy
currents in the wire loops, which decrease their inductance.
Most commonly used (including Singapore)

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How to use inductive loop detector
measure traffic?

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How to use inductive loop detector
measure traffic?

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Example
 Suppose average vehicle length 𝑙 ҧ = 6 meter and detector
length D=2 meter. If the observed occupancy at a loop
detector is 15%. The density is:

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 The Freeway
Performance Measurement System (PeMS)

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 PeMS
• The Freeway Performance Measurement System (PeMS) provides an
easy-to-access source of historical and real-time traffic data.
• PeMS is a consolidated database of information collected via
Caltrans loop detectors from traffic management centers (TMCs)
throughout the state.
• PeMS can serve as a decision support tool to monitor highway
performance using measures consistent with the statewide
Performance Measurement Initiative led by Caltrans.
• PeMS supports system management objectives: reducing highway
congestion, increasing trip reliability, enhancing customer safety,
utilizing existing system fully, being demand sensitive

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 Considering Traffic Composition
• Modal variation of traffic – “traffic composition”
– Different type of vehicles in a traffic stream
– Variation in sizes and performance
– Procedure to convert all vehicles to equivalent types i.e. pcu

Vehicle Classification Vehicle Type PCU (Passenger Car Unit)

1 Motorcycle 0.5
2-3 Cars and Pickups 1.0
4 Buses (Single) 1.75
Buses (Articulated) 2.25
5 Small vans 1.5
6-8 Single unit trucks 2.0
9-13 Multi trailers 2.5-3.0
Problem: A traffic stream has 90 cars, 5 motorcycles and 5 trucks. If
the pcu of motorcycles and trucks are 0.5 and 2 respectively, what
is the traffic flow in pcu?

Solution:

Traffic flow
= 90 + 5 x 0.5 + 5 x 2
= 103.5 pcu

ERP Rate: Cars, taxis and light

goods vehicles are 1PCU.
Motorcycles are 0.5PCU; heavy
goods vehicles and small buses
are 1.5PCU. Very heavy goods
vehicles and big buses are 2PCU.
 Junction Analysis
• The values listed below are provided as a guide for the
evaluation of isolated signalized junctions.

Basic lane saturation flow rate: 2,000pcu/hr/lane for arterial

roads. Lower values are to be used for residential streets and
environment with high roadside friction e.g. CBD
Source: Guidelines for Preparation of Traffic Impact Assessment Reports, LTA 2011
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 Summary
• How to use inductive loop detector measure
traffic?
– Flow
– Occupancy
– Density
• Freeway Level of Service
• Vehicle Classification

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 Acknowledgement
The slides are essentially revised based on Dr Raymond Ong’s lecture notes in
2018. Some materials are taken from Prof Marco Nie’s course at
Northwestern University. Big thanks to them. Please do not circulate and
upload the slides online.

Reference:
• Mannering, F. L., Washburn, S. S. and Kilareski, W. P. (2013). Chapter 5.
Principles of Highway Engineering and Traffic Analysis, 5th Edition. Wiley.
• Garber, N. and Hoel, L. (2009). Chapters 4 and 6, Traffic and Highway
Engineering, 4th Edition. Cengage Learning.
• C. Jotin Khisty and B. Kent Lall (2003) Transportation Engineering: An
Introduction, 3rd Edition. Pearson.
• Traffic Analysis Toolbox Volume VI: Definition, Interpretation, and
Calculation of Traffic Analysis Tools Measures of Effectiveness, 3.0 Field
Measurement of MOEs, FHWA (2007).
• HCM (2000) Highway Capacity Manual. Transport Research Board, USA.

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