Estimation of Passenger Car Equivalents for Heterogeneous Traffic Stream
Syed Omar Ballari
Syed Omar Ballari, Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Holy Mary Institute of Technology and Science, Hyderabad (Telangana), India.
Manuscript received on 07 April 2019 | Revised Manuscript received on 20 April 2019 | Manuscript published on 30 April 2019 | PP: 1026-1031 | Volume-8 Issue-6, April 2019 | Retrieval Number: F5014048619/19©BEIESP
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© The Authors. Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open access article under the CC-BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Abstract: Due to the rapid urbanization, urban arterials have witnessed increase in number of vehicles significantly all over the country as they cater maximum traffic in metropolitan cities. Traffic conditions are heterogeneous in all cities of the world, but the degree of heterogeneity is different in developed and developing countries. The traffic stream in India is purely heterogeneous with no lane discipline and vehicles of different static and dynamic characteristics sharing the same road space. The traffic stream comprises of vehicles like cars, light motorized vehicles, heavy commercial vehicles, three wheelers, motorized two wheelers, non-motorized vehicles, etc. Passenger car equivalents (PCEs) are used to express different vehicles in heterogeneous traffic stream to passenger cars in homogeneous traffic. PCEs play vital role in estimating highway capacity by converting heterogeneous mixed traffic flow in to equivalent homogeneous traffic, which consists of passenger cars only. Passenger car equivalents (PCE) are used in estimating the effect of different vehicles on the traffic stream compared to passenger cars. PCE values are crucial in traffic flow analysis and in capacity estimates. The present study has been concentrated on four and six lane divided urban arterials in Kolkata. The PCE of vehicles have been presented for both the urban roads and the values are more than the values given in IRC: 106-1990 for six lane divided urban arterials and lower for four lane divided urban arterials. It has also been observed that, PCE values of different types of vehicles have been found to be different at different ranges of volume and composition.
Keyword: Urban Arterials, Heterogeneous Traffic, Capacity, Passenger Car Unit.
Scope of the Article: Civil Engineering