Traffic Engineering

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 o Composition of traffic consists of pedestrians, cyclists,
two wheelers, three wheelers, cars, tempo, truck, buses
and so on. The number of vehicles increasing
consistently
o This leads to traffic congestion, delays and accidents.
o To avoid this and to have safety it is necessary to study
the traffic characteristics and traffic operations before
planning and designing.

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 o Traffic engineering is the branch which deals with these
aspects of highway engineering
o Basic objective is to have safe, efficient, free and rapid
flow of traffic without accidents.
o Includes studies of traffic aspects like
o Characteristics, Operations, Planning, geom. design,
administration.

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 o All the traffic study phases are implemented thru three
E’s . . .
o Engineering: improving road geometrics, and providing
additional road facilities
o Enforcement: making laws, rules, regulations and
controls
o Education: training public in schools, colleges,
publicity, radio, TV to improve the human factor in
traffic performance

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 o It is all the data collected to analyze the traffic
characteristics used for design and control. Includes. . .
o Type of traffic, volume of traffic, nature of traffic, speed
of traffic, condition of vehicles and accidents (place,
cause, time) or other items (axle load, tyre pressure
etc)

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 a. Traffic Volume study
b. Speed Studies
o i Spot Speed Study
o ii Speed and Delay Study
c. Origin and Destination Study
Traffic Flow and Capacity Study
Accident Study

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 o Traffic volume is the number of vehicles crossing a
section of road per unit time at any selected period.
o Traffic volume is used as a quantity measure of flow; the
commonly used units are vehicles per day and vehicles
per hour.
o A complete traffic volume study may include the
classified volume study by recording the volume of
various types and classes of traffic, the distribution by
direction and turning movements and the distribution on
different lanes per unit time.

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 o There are variations in traffic flow from time to time.
Hourly traffic volume varies considerably during a day,
the peak hourly volume may be much higher than
average hourly volume.
o Daily traffic volumes vary considerably in a week and
there are variations with season.
o Hence if a true picture is to be obtained, the hourly
traffic volume should be known along with the patterns
of hourly, daily and seasonal variations

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Mechanical counters
o These may be either fixed (permanent) type or portable type. The
mechanical counter can automatically record the total number of
vehicles crossing a section of the road in a desired period. The
working may be by the effect of impulses or stimuli caused by tyre
movements on a pneumatic hose placed across the roadway or by
using any other type of sensor.
o Other methods of working the mechanical detectors are by photo-
electric cells, magnetic detector and radar detectors. The main
advantage of mechanical counter is that it can work throughout the
day and night for the desired period, recording the total hourly
volume, which may not be practicable in manual counting

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Manual counts
o This method employs a field team to record traffic volume on the
prescribed record sheets.
o By this method it is possible to obtain data which can not be
collected by mechanical counters, such as vehicle classification,
turning movements and counts where the loading conditions or
number of occupants are required.

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Presentation of traffic volume data
o The data collected during the traffic volume studies are sorted out
and are presented in any of the following forms depending upon
the requirements.
o (a) Annual average daily traffic (AADT or ADT) of the total traffic as
well as classified traffic are calculated. This helps in deciding the
relative importance of a route and in phasing the road
development programme. In order to convert the different vehicle
classes to one class such as passenger car, conversion factors
known as Passenger Car Units (PCU) are used.
o (b) Trend charts showing volume trends over period of years are
prepared. These data are useful for planning future expansion,
design and regulation.

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Presentation of traffic volume data
o (c) Variation charts showing hourly, daily and seasonal variations
are also prepared. These help in deciding the facilities and
regulation needed during peak traffic periods.
o (d) Traffic flow maps along the routes, (the thickness of the lines
representing the traffic volume to any desired scale), are drawn.
These help to find the traffic volume distribution at a glance.

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 1.Spot Speed
You are very familiar with spot speed. When you look at your
speedometer while driving, the speed indicating will be the spot
speed. That is spot speed is the instantaneous speed of a vehicle at a
particular section or location of the road. We will learn more about
spot speed study in below section.
2.Average Speed
As its name, the average speed is the average of all spot speeds of
various vehicles passing through a given point or section.
3.Running Speed
Running speed is the average speed maintained by a vehicle over a
particular stretch of road.
4.Travel or Journey speed
Journey speed the effective speed of travel of all vehicles along the
route between two terminals.

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 o One of the simplest methods of finding spot speed is by using
enoscope which is just a mirror box supported on a tripod
stand.
o In its simplest principle, the observer is stationed on one side
of the road and starts a stopwatch when a vehicle crosses
that section.
o An enoscope is placed at a convenient distance of say 30 m in
such a way that the image of the vehicle is seen by the
observer when the vehicle crosses the section where the
enoscope is fixed and at this instant the stop watch is
stopped.

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 Types of Spot Speed
There are two types of spot speed, Space mean speed and Time
mean speed.
1.Space Mean Speed
Space mean speed is the average speed of vehicles in a certain
road length at any specified time period. It is very useful for
determining vehicle flow characteristics.
2.Time Mean Speed
Time mean speed is the average speed of vehicles passing a
point over some specified time period.

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 98th percentile speed( Design speed)
98th percentile speed is taken for the highway pavement design.
In 98th percentile speed, 98 percentage of all vehicles are passing
below this speed. Only 2% of remaining vehicles will exceeds this
speed.
85th percentile speed
In 85th percentile speed, 85% of all vehicles are passing below this
speed. Only 15% of vehicles are exceeding this speed. When we
comparing the above two percentile speed, 85th percentile speed
is less than 98th percentile speed as shown in the above graph.
This speed is the safe speed of that road.
15th percentile speed
In 15 percentile speed, 15% of all vehicles are passing below this
speed and the remaining vehicles will be higher than this speed.
This should be the minimum maintaining speed of vehicle.

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 o The origin and destination (O & D) study is carried out mainly
to (i) plan the road network and other facilities for vehicular
traffic and (ii) plan the schedule of different -roads of
transportation for the trip demand

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The various applications of O & D studies may be summed up as follows
o to judge the adequacy of existing routes and to use in planning new
network of roads.
o to plan transportation system and mass transit facilities in cities including
routes and schedules of operation.
o to locate expressway or major routes along the desire lines.
o to establish preferential routes for various categories of vehicle including
by-pass.
o to locate terminals and to plan terminal facilities.
o to locate new bridge as per traffic demands.
o to locate intermediate stops of public transport.
o to establish design standards for the road, bridges and culverts along the
route.
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 o Road side interview method
o License plate method
o Return post card method
o Tag on car method
o Home interview method
o Work spot interview method

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o The improvements made or facilities provided to the
road user to obtain safe, efficient, free and rapid flow
of traffic
o Types: Traffic Signs, Traffic Signals, Traffic Markings
and Traffic Islands.
o Traffic Signs: Symbols or inscriptions, mounted on
fixed or portable support to give warning, direction or
guidance to road users.
o Types: Mandatory, Cautionary and Informatory.

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 o Sign indicating prohibition,
Speed 600 dia,
30 red disc the non obeyance of which
150 Limit
is punishable by law.
mm 150 x 150
Includes signs . .
Def Plate
2.8 m o Speed limit, Weight limit,
Post
80x80x8, No entry, direction sign, no
painted parking, overtaking
white and
black 250 prohibited, sound
prohibited, one way entry,

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 450 o Signs indicating to road user
equlateral
about their approach to a
triangle with
80 border place where caution is
150
mm 450 x 450 necessary. Includes . .
explanatory
plate o Rough road, speed breaker,
2.75 m Zig zag, cross road, left turn,
Post
80x80x8, right turn, level crossing,
painted school ahead, dead end road,
white and
black 250 steep slope, hairpin bend,
narrow bridge, ghat road
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Chevron
Hazard
Marker
o Give information of interest to the road user and guide them.
o May be of rectangular shape of specified size indicating,
o Road junction approach, End of speed limit, Parking sign,
village and place name signs, names of route/road, km stone,
200 m stones.. .. ..

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 o The lines and patterns over the carriageway such as
center line marking, lane marking, pedestrian crossing
for controlling and guiding the traffic
o Traffic Signals: devices used to control and guide the
traffic, include
o Traffic control signals, pedestrian control signals, special
signals.

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 •Road Studs

•Delineators
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 o Help in orderly movement of traffic,
reduce accidents, control the speed
o Types:
o Fixed Time, Manual, Traffic actuated:
o The phase and cycle time are
controlled by fixed time, manually,
depending on demand of traffic

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 Rotary

Zebra Channelizing
Crossing or refuge
islands
o Objects: orderly flow of traffic, maintain the speed,
conflict point elimination, self governing flow of traffic
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 o Means separation of traffic. May be w. r. t.
o Time: done by signals
o Place: bye pass or ring road
o Speed: foot path, cycle track, slow-fast lane
o Direction: one way or no entry signs
o Grade: flyovers or under passes
o Trumpet and Cloverleaf junctions

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