TRA-411

TRANSPORTATION STUDIES
Week 8:

Traffic Engineering Studies

Objectives of the Lecture

The Lecturer:
To introduce transportation engineering studies: Their
Purpose, Data Collection Techniques and Analysis
Methods
The Learner should be able to:
 Describe five or more traffic engineering studies
 Plan and execute a relevant traffic engineering study:
Location, time of study, data collection technique,
analysis method, reporting and presentation of results

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Outline

1) Purpose of Traffic Studies

2) Modern Technology for Traffic data gathering and
analysis
3) Common Traffic Engineering Studies
4) Special Studies
5) Volume Studies

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 A) Purpose of Traffic Studies

1) Managing the physical system – examples

 Traffic control devices and road inventories
 Condition assessment
2) Investigating trends over time: E.g.
 Volume
 Speed
 Road Traffic Crashes
 Needs assessment: the aim is to determine future
needs so that appropriate action can be
determined and executed in time
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Purpose of studies

3) Understanding the mobility needs and

choices of the travellers and industry
 Mode choices
 Routings
 Parking
 Time of day (for work/school and other trips)
 Goods delivery
 Space utilization
 Motivations for ride sharing
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Purpose of traffic studies

4) Calibrating basic relationships and

parameters: E.g.
 Perception-Reaction Time for different
situations
 Friction coefficient
 Discharge headways at intersections
 Other parameters used in equations in this
course / textbook /traffic engineering
practice

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 Purpose of traffic studies
5) Assessing effectiveness of
measures/improvements/changes
 Effectiveness of safety measures
 Specific geometric changes
 Introduction of bus or cycle lanes

6) Assessing potential project impacts

 Traffic impact assessment (how will traffic volume/speed
change)
 EIA
 Site developments
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Purpose of traffic studies

7) Evaluating performance of systems or

subsystems: How well is mobility being
delivered? E.g.
The case of Chipembere Highway – Level of service for
each approach during specific time of day. Can this
be improved? To what extent?

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2) Modern Technology for Traffic
data gathering and analysis
 Make use of advances in communication
and computing technologies
 Electronic gadgets e.g. Video etc
 See examples in the textbook (Traffic
Engineering)
 Manual methods of data collection are
becoming comparatively costly

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3) Common Traffic Engineering
Studies

1) Volume studies
 Volume or flow at a specific facility
 Most common in traffic engineering
 A measure of demand
 Sampled on all streets and highways
 Special purpose as needed
 How do we conduct volume study?
 How is the data analysed?

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 2) Speed studies
Measures speed of vehicles at a point on a
street or highway
Free-flow (uncongested) conditions (off-
pea hours)
Indicates driver desire and perception of
reasonable operating speed
Important input into design, control, safety
decisions

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 3) Travel Time and delay
Studies
 Time taken to traverse a significant route
 A primary measure of congestion
 Indicates the effectiveness of measures intended to
improve flow through the route e.g. Progressive signal
coordination
 Delay studies Measures the extent of stopped delay at
a specific location (intersection) or various locations
along a route
 Usually done alongside travel time studies

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4) Density studies
 Density is rarely directly observed in the field (as by using video on
vantage point)
 Measures of speed and volume for a road section – density can
be computed
5) Headway and Spacing studies
 Intersection departure headways - which determines
performance and capacity – are very common (headway,
saturation flow rate)
 Spacing – average spacing yields density for a road section
 Interaction among different vehicles determined from their
spacing, headway studies while
 Average values describe the stream as a whole

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 6) Special Studies
 Make use of secondary data sources and specific
surveys/interviews designed to get information to address a
particular problem
 Some examples follow:
1) Road traffic crash studies (Accident studies)
 Traffic safety is the primary function of the traffic engineer
 Occurrence of traffic crashes must therefore be reported and
recorded (by police) to provide a reliable database including
identification of locations susceptible to crash occurrence,
adequate information for each crash (environment, roadway
characteristics, driver/vehicle contributing factors, time of day
etc

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2) Parking studies

Inventory of parking supplies

Estimation of demand
Interviews or other techniques are
used to determine trip purposes,
tolerable waling distances, paring
durations,

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3) Goods movement and
Public Transport studies
Buses and goods vehicles contribute to
congestion in the CBD but are necessary
for businesses and residents
Demands of PT and GV, Operational
characteristics, needs for specific facilities
must be studied and most efficient plan
developed
Such studies are part of transport planning
studies
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4) Pedestrian studies

Pedestrian are a basic traffic stream

and interact with vehicles at
intersections and crossing points
The terms describing vehicular stream
are used to describe pedestrian
stream as well
Interviews and other means are used
to obtain information on trip purpose,
OD, etc
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 5) Calibration studies
Research to establish basic relationships
and parameters
Special requirements on data to be
collected and its analysis
Calibration of capacity and level of
service relationships are typical examples

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1) Volume studies

 Data Collection Techniques and Technology

 Simple field checks manual methods, field sheets or mechanical
counters can do
 Short term counts – intersection volume counts – data loggers are
effective. An example is the TDC 12
 Reference data should be recorded in the field: Location,
movements, weather, observer name and title, phone number,
date and time of study, counting intervals linked to real time,
page x of y of the data set
 Turning movement counts at intersections: How many people are
necessary to observe 3 directions per approach X number of lanes
X 4 approaches = 12 (?) movements classified count (pedal
cycles, motorcycles, passenger cars, buses and trucks) and
pedestrians crossing?

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 Duration of study? Depends on study purpose
 Analysis: Hourly volumes, volume each 15 minutes, PHF
of the Peak Hour
 Presentation of the data

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Thank you for
your active
participation
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 Quiz:
Question 1 of Test No. 1
a) Why is it important to differentiate between time mean
speed and space mean speed? (1 mark)
b) Plot Flow-Density curve clearly indicating the stable and
forced flow conditions. How is critical density related to
facility capacity? (1 mark)
c) Volume is used to describe quality of the flow for example
under low volume conditions the quality of service is
excellent (Level of Service A or B) – True or False? (1 mark)
d) The average spacing and headway of a traffic stream is 20 m
and 5 seconds respectively. Compute the macroscopic
parameters (2 marks)

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