IRC Papaers

The Indian Roads Congress
E-mail: secretarygen@irc.org.in/indianhighways@irc.org.in
Founded : December 1934
IRC Website: www.irc.org.in
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Tel : Secretary General: +91 (11) 2338 6486
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Fax : +91 (11) 2338 1649
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New Delhi - 110 022
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2618 5315, 2618 5319, Fax : +91 (11) 2618 3669
No part of this publication may be reproduced by any means without prior written permission from the Secretary General, IRC.
Edited and Published by Shri Vishnu Shankar Prasad on behalf of the Indian Roads Congress (IRC), New Delhi. The responsibility of the
contents and the opinions expressed in Indian Highways is exclusively of the author/s concerned. IRC and the Editor disclaim responsibility
and liability for any statement or opinion, originality of contents and of any copyright violations by the authors. The opinions expressed in the
papers and contents published in the Indian Highways do not necessarily represent the views of the Editor or IRC.
VOLUME 41 NUMBER 4 APRIL 2013
CONTENTS ISSN 0376-7256
INDIAN HIGHWAYS
A REVIEW OF ROAD AND ROAD TRANSPORT DEVELOPMENT
Page
2-4 From the Editors Desk
5 Life-Cycle Cost Analysis of Long Lasting Pavements
Deepthi Mary Dilip, Praveen Ravi and G.L. Sivakumar Babu
15 Support Loan Concept for the Viability of A BOT Road Project
Swapan Kumar Bagui and Ambarish Ghosh
27 Derivation of Capacity Estimates for Urban Expressway Using Computer Simulation
Ravikiran Puvvala, Balaji Ponnu and Shriniwas S Arkatkar
36 Forthcoming Event of IBC
37 Determination of Dynamic PCUs of Different Types of Passenger Vehicles on Urban Roads : A Case Study,
Delhi Urban Area
Probhat Kr. Paul and P.K. Sarkar
48 Road Accident : A Threat Towards Nations Peace and Prosperity
Bikramjit Das Gupta and Abhijit Kr. Mandal
58 Obituary
59 Cinder Waste Material for the Construction of Road
V.G Havanagi, A.K. Sinha, V.K. Kanaujia, A. Ranjan and
S. Mathur
63-70 Circulars Issued by MORT&H
71 Tender Notice of NHs Madurai
2 INDIAN HIGHWAYS, APRIL 2013
Dear Readers,
The pace at which India aspires to grow requires the development of infrastructure at a much higher speed.
The crucial catalyst role the infrastructure plays in easing supply side constraints to economic growth has been
well recognized. Due to these valid reasons, huge investment in infrastructure sector has been envisaged in the
12
th
Plan Period. However, such a huge investment is a daunting task, which requires not only the investment
support from private sector but new fnancial resources as well as innovative fnancing methodologies may
also be required in fnancing this growth driver sector of economy.
This year we are celebrating the 150
th
birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda who once famously state:-
Arise, Awake & Stop not till the goal is achieved. Today his sayings are all the more applicable in
harnessing the creative energy of all especially the professionals in the road sector.
In todays scenario a paradigm shift is required towards the road sector so as to re-vitalize & rejuvenate this
crucial segment of the infrastructure sector. Rarely, the road infrastructures overall impact on economy of
the region, on each segment of the society as well as on each segment of the industry have been analyzed
and documented. Normally, a conservative view towards spending in the road sector is taken and also not
much specifc credit is given to this important sector in achieving the growth & prosperity of the economy.
However, the multi-dimensional benefts to the overall economy with the increased penetration of roads in
different regions of the country are already visible since last more than 10 years.
Therefore, in todays scenario of symptoms of global economic stagnation with symptoms of economic
contraction, there is a need to carry out Road Infrastructure Productivity Assessment. This Constructive
Risk Analysis is the need of the hour to help in strengthening fscal fundamentals as well as for achieving
fscal consolidation in the sector. This will also help in specifcally bringing out a focused attention on the
contributing role played by the road infrastructure in effectiveness of the deliverance of government policies &
schemes in a fair manner. It will also help in bringing out the necessity of investment by different stakeholders
in the road sector so as to reap the fruits of a higher growth rate on sustainable basis.
Having recognized the essentiality of high level of investment in road infrastructure sector for the overall
revival of investment climate leading to sustainable growth in the economy, we need to build on the successes
and learn from the failures with an open mind. The public private partnership in the road sector even though
initiated in the 1990s and in a big way during the last 7 years has witnessed some problems which need to be
addressed. It may require some change in the mindset besides institutional restructuring as well.
In the absence of proper debt management, fnancing of road projects have run into diffculty as leveraged
companies are unable to raise more debt in the absence of fresh equity. There is a need for development of
newer fnancial models for road infrastructure fnancing. To bridge the demand-supply gap with suggestive
innovative fnancing mechanisms like take out fnancing, re-fnancing & securitization, etc. some of the issues
and challenges for increased investment in road sector may be addressed. These comes with a rider of broader
understanding and clarity. For resolving these issues broad consensus is to be built and in this it would be
better if the J apnese system called NEMAWASHI is adopted which means Consensus in advance. This
may allow timely decisions with a pro-active partnership role played by people, private entities and the public
authorities/organizations.
This requires a shift in the mindset to understand the collaborative benefts of synergy of different stakeholders
in the implementation and operation of road infrastructural projects which generally falls in the long term
From the Editors Desk
HARNESS THE STRENGTH OF ROADS IN ECONOMY
(SUSTAINABLE & INCLUSIVE DEVELOPMENT WITH FISCAL CONSOLIDATION)
EDITORIAL
INDIAN HIGHWAYS, APRIL 2013 3
category. This may also address to some extent another important issue of shared obligatory responsibility &
accountability in the process of stakeholders ownership and obligations.
In PPP projects, another issue may require innovative concept which is related to exit route. Generally it
is advocated that exit route needs to be eased so that promoters can sale equity position after construction,
passing on all benefts and the responsibility to the entities that step in. In this process, the government can
also be beneftted in case the premium over sale proceeds are shared between seller and the government,
keeping in view that the premium has grown on account of governments support and public investment
(including fnances from fnancial institutions). The government share may be leveraged either to bring down
the quantum of toll rate or the tolling period which will beneft the public (road users) directly. This may
create a win-win situation.
Similarly, the VGF component can be made a rolling proposition which will help not only the sector but
economy as a whole as huge rolling funds will also be available to part fnance the road sector projects. It
is a common fact that the private sector investor asses the investment risk and therefore, they prefer frst for
Attractive scheme and thereafter the Viable scheme. The Unviable scheme does not fnd private sector
participants and therefore the institutional restructuring should address the issue of making the unviable
scheme investor conducive. This may require developing innovative fnancing models which may help players
to move from attractive schemes to completely unviable schemes while fulflling social responsibility and
balance development of the region. Under this concept, optimized utilization of land resources including
monetization of vacant land resources for providing public utilities/essential services/storage facilities, etc.
as well low-cost housing may be considered along with the required road facility. This concept may help
in providing ring roads around congested cities possibly with no cost to the government but government
organizations needs to act as facilitators in active partnership with the people of the region. The social benefts
as well as environmental benefts of this concept may be enormous.
Most of the time roads are considered to be a facility which is in confict with the environmental issues.
However, little thought has been given that roads also contributes towards environmental management system
as it helps in improving resource effciency, reduce waste and drive down production costs in industrial and
agricultural sectors. The road building also uses some of the industrial waste and by-products which have
otherwise environmental implications.
In addition, the roads helps in bridging the gap between haves and have-nots; between urban areas & rural
areas as well as does not discriminate between its road users. Road & road transport system are considered
as the most economical way of connecting the people living in tribal & forest areas which enables them to
participate in the main-stream activities. Why they should not enjoy the fruits of economic growth and why
they should be deprived of the benefcial effects of the economic prosperity of the country without proper road
connectivity. Of course this integration should have proper checks and balances in place with a constructive
approach rather than a rigid approach.
As per the assessment of the working group of 12
th
Five Year Plan on employment, the rate of employment
in last two decades is lower than the rate of growth of the economy and in addition the concern is expressed
in the areas of quality of employment and the level of productivity. Harnessing the advantages of fexibility
of the road transport system, these issues can be addressed to some extent. The integrated road planning
& development may also help in optimizing respective strengths of minor, small and medium enterprises
resulting in more inclusive and employment opportunities. Therefore, the conservative mindset needs to be
changed to remove the environmental related hurdles to road infrastructure growth.
The effciency of the road transport system can be improved considerably through a proper mix of high grade
access controlled expressways with the existing road network. This may help in not only providing relief
to the through traffc passing through congested towns but may also bring a corresponding relief to these
EDITORIAL
towns. It may also help in not only faster movement of industrial & agricultural produce but may help in
faster distribution of the same across the country in a fexible manner, in a timely manner, thereby limiting
the infationary pressure due to scarcity in one area and depression in prices due to surplus or excessive
production in other areas. Usually the cost of these facilities comes in their way but this cost should not be
considered just as expenditure but it should be considered as a constructive investment resulting into multiple
long term benefts spanning over 50 or more years. To some extent the issue of acquisition of land of these
new green feld facilities can be addressed by constructing totally elevated expressways. This new model
needs a closer look as it opens up new opportunities of integration of different sectors of economy besides
resulting in better capacity utilization in the down-stream industries even in the period of global economic
uncertainty. Perhaps this advantage may not be available with any other mode of transport infrastructure.
With each passing day the need & necessity of the expressway is increasing. The same may be considered as
necessity instead of luxury.
Normally, when there is global economic downtrend and the export market also witnesses a consequential
downtrend. In the period of global economic downtrend, the effectiveness of the schemes providing export
incentive to the exporters also witness their limitations, as they does not help in bringing down per unit
production cost or encourage mass production economic scale of production. How the exports can be
made more competitive on sustainable basis and what role the effcient road network plays towards the
same on sustainable basis (even during period of global uncertainty) may suggest for re-channelizing part of
this fund in building and developing effcient road transport trade facilities, so that on sustainable basis the
transportation cost is slashed both for the raw material as well as fnished products. This may also help in
framing a comprehensive logistic policy framework in which road sector may be an active partner.
Obviously, the industrial sector is also a consumer of the output of the road infrastructure system but at
the same time it has also an obligatory role as a consumer to play an active role in such initiatives of road
construction. Harnessing of demographic dividend through appropriate developmental efforts provide an
opportunity to achieve inclusive and productivity within the country. It may also help in arresting joblessness.
It opens up opportunity for utilization of India inclusive innovation fund which primarily will be focusing on
generating employment & supporting livelihood across the country. The synergy which can be provided by
the road sector to this effort of the government needs due consideration by all stakeholders.
The road sector is yet to be beneftted from the corporate sector social responsibility concept. The potential
is enormous and the benefts which may be accrued to the corporate sector from their investment in the road
sector under CSR will be enormous. Under CSR the corporate sector may adopt some of the linear road routes
or even part of road network which may help not only in enhancing their own productivity and proftability
but may help in spreading their product reach. They may invest in the areas of R&D efforts, enhancing road
safety, providing road side facilities, undertaking maintenance activities, etc. This may also help in improving
satisfaction level of the road users on those stretches besides help in creating more employment opportunities
as well as bringing smiles on the faces of local unemployed segment of society thereby contributing towards
harmonizing sustainable economic development with higher goals of happiness, good governance, community
vitality and well-being. There are many more direct and indirect benefts of the investment in roads under
CSR concept by the corporate sector.
Your wish is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it. That is the mark of
true professional
Gautam Buddha
Place: New Delhi Vishnu Shankar Prasad
Dated: 18
th
March, 2013 Secretary General
TECHNICAL PAPERS
ABSTRACT
The concept of designing long lasting pavements is gaining
acceptance with the increasing traffc demand and the need for
economic and environmental sustainability. In this paper, the
theory of perpetual pavements is implemented with a view to
compare these long lasting pavements with the conventionally
designed pavements and to evaluate their economic feasibility in
Indian conditions. The design was based on available literature
on perpetual pavements that suggests the use of Mechanistic-
Empirical Design (MED) philosophy wherein limiting pavement
responses are used to evaluate a proposed design. In order to
compute pavement responses to the applied traffc loads, the
pavement design software KENPAVE was employed. A horizontal
tensile strain of 70s below the bituminous layer for fatigue
cracking, and vertical compressive strain of 200s on top of the
subgrade for structural rutting, was adopted as the endurance
limits. The signifcant role of bituminous layer thickness in the
reduction of the overall design thickness was observed at varying
levels of traffc. In order to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the
various design alternatives, a life cycle cost analysis was carried
out using the software LCCA Express. The signifcant contribution
of the high stiffness base materials and a stable foundation towards
a more cost-effective design was highlighted in this study. It was
seen that at the end of 50 years, for the long-lasting pavement
section considered there is a saving of about 19.4% of the total
costs for a project length of 20km, when compared to the costs
incurred by the conventional pavement. It was concluded that
perpetual pavements can be a viable option for constructing
structurally stable and economically feasible roads with minimal
maintenance and other overheads, thus necessitating extensive
feld studies for implementation on Indian roads.
1 INTRODUCTION
A perpetual pavement is an asphalt pavement designed
to last for about 50 years without requiring major
structural rehabilitation or reconstruction and needing
only periodic surface renewal in response to distresses
confned to the top of the pavement (APA 2002). The
term Perpetual is slightly misleading as no pavement
LIFE-CYCLE COST ANALYSIS OF LONG LASTING PAVEMENTS
DEEPTHI MARY DILIP,* PRAVEEN RAVI** AND G.L. SIVAKUMAR BABU***
can last indefnitely; rather, the term long lasting is
more apt. All further use of the word perpetual in
this paper will imply long lasting pavements of 50
years or more.
Available literature has shown that the early
practice to accommodate increasing traffc was to
correspondingly increase the pavement thickness. This
was a result of empirical extrapolation rather than an
engineering analysis which resulted in uneconomical
and environmentally unsustainable pavements. Later
analysis revealed that most pavements designed
in such a way were more than capable to resist the
heaviest traffc loads (APA 2002). Such conservative
designs exert a heavy fnancial burden on developing
countries where the aim should be to produce
economically sound, long lasting and structurally
stable pavements. The idea of perpetual pavements
thus came into existence as much to prevent over-
design as to provide a longer life span (APA 2002).
The basic premise of designing a perpetual pavement
is that an adequately thick Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA)
pavement placed on a stable foundation will relocate
the distresses that originate at the bottom of the
pavement to the upper layers (APA 2002). This obviates
expensive structural maintenance procedures since the
distresses are confned to the wearing course which can
be replaced when and if functional requirements such
as skid resistance and riding quality are not being met
(APA 2002). Thus the potential of fatigue cracking and
structural rutting, the two most devastating pavement
distresses, is reduced in Perpetual Pavements.
* Research Scholar
** Project Associate
*** Professor
Department of Civil Engineering and Centre for Infrastructure, Sustainable Transportation &
Urban Planning (CiSTUP), Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore-560 012
E-mail: gls@civil.iisc.ernet.in
TECHNICAL PAPERS
Research has shown that there are threshold values of
horizontal and vertical strains below which no fatigue
cracking or structural rutting occur respectively.
However, there seems to be a disparity in these
values among different researchers, particularly in the
Fatigue Endurance Limit (FEL) below which fatigue
cracking does not occur. While Tarefder et al (2010)
has considered 70 microstrains (s), Yang et al (2006)
has considered 120s by arguing that 70s is too
conservative for Chinas heavier traffc loads. There is
however consensus in the limiting value of structural
rutting taken as 200s. The Indian Roads Congress,
IRC:37-2012, has proposed the values of 70 and
200s for the fatigue and rutting endurance limits, to
be adopted in the design of perpetual pavements.
In this study, the signifcance of the HMA layer over
the granular layer was showcased for different traffc
loads by designing and comparing pavements having
greater granular thickness with those having greater
HMA thickness. The pavement structure and other
parameters were adopted from IRC:37-2012 while
MED principles such as limiting damage ratio were
used to evaluate the pavement. The signifcance of
stiffer base materials was then demonstrated for a traffc
loading of 66.51msa, which corresponds to an initial
traffc of 2000 CVPD and design life of 15 years, by
comparing the design thickness values adopted from
IRC:37-2012 with the long-lasting design alternatives.
This was done by varying the resilient modulus of
the granular base within the range recommended
in Indian design guidelines. These concepts were
then extended to design long-lasting pavements by
adopting the limiting values of horizontal and vertical
strains as 70s and 200s for design purposes. A Life
Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) was performed to gauge
the economic superiority of the long lasting design
alternatives over the conventional design; and thereby
implying the feasibility of implementing the concept
of long lasting pavements. The cost of the alternatives
was compared with that of a conventional pavement
designed, by considering the cost of constructing
overlays to extend the life of these pavements to 50
years
2 NEED FOR PERPETUAL PAVEMENTS IN
INDIA
As India is attaining greater modernization, the number
of vehicles on the road is increasing signifcantly.
This is imposing greater distress on the countrys
roads in the form of increased fatigue cracking and
structural and surface rutting, which directly increases
the maintenance cost and resource consumption.
Pavements which are traditionally designed for 15-20
years need structural rehabilitation and reconstruction
after their design life has been reached; this involves
major traffc closures and rerouting adding to the
rehabilitation cost. These considerations are especially
important on high-traffc volume freeways where user
delay costs may be prohibitive (Tarefder et al. 2010).
Perpetual pavements have been found to improve
this situation as they are capable of maintaining the
pavement performance for nearly 50 years without
requiring major structural rehabilitation. They have
gained a lot of importance in developed countries
having been successfully constructed in USA, UK, and
France (APA 2010). They are also being extensively
studied in developing countries like China (Yang et
al. 2006) and recommended for India (Kandhal et
al. 2008). The success of these perpetual pavements
advocates their study and implementation in India
while moving towards sustainable development.
The main feature of perpetual pavements is that they
never need to be completely removed and replaced. In
the world of pavements, this is the ultimate in economic
and environmental sustainability. As only the surface
is renewed and the base structure stays in place, there
is considerable saving of construction materials. Also,
the user-costs associated with construction delays are
greatly reduced because routine maintenance can be
done quickly in off-peak hours, unlike the remove
and replace option which necessitates 24-hour road
closures. In addition, signifcant fuel savings are
achieved with pavements kept smooth by routine
maintenance involving infrequent milling of the top
layer for recycling, then placing a quiet, durable,
safe new overlay. All these factors not only result
in a more cost-effective design but also a reduction
TECHNICAL PAPERS
in the emission of greenhouse gases. By reducing
greenhouse gas emissions, perpetual pavements can
mitigate climate change, both now and for generations
to come.
3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
1 To highlight the effect of increasing the
thickness of the Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) over
the granular layer on the critical pavement
responses and overall design thickness,
by designing pavements according to the
philosophy followed in IRC:37-2012.
2 To examine the effect of providing stiffer
base materials on the pavement design for
conventional pavements (15 years) and long-
lasting pavements.
3 To design long-lasting pavements and to
perform LCCA for all the design alternatives to
highlight the economic advantages of providing
perpetual pavements over an equivalent
conventional pavement designed according to
IRC:37-2012, over a period of 50 years.
4 PAVEMENT DESIGN AND ANALYSIS
METHODOLOGY
4.1 Asphalt Pavements Designed for 20 Years
To showcase the importance of the HMA layer, the
pavement structure was adopted for a CBR of 5% from
IRC:37-2012 for traffc loads of 30, 100 and 150msa.
The structure consists of a bituminous surface course,
a granular base and sub-base layer and the subgrade.
The bituminous surface layer consists of two courses,
namely a Bituminous Concrete (BC) wearing course
and Dense Bituminous Macadam (DBM) binder
course. The values of material properties like resilient
modulus and Poissons ratio were adopted from
IRC:37-2012 guidelines. Resilient Modulus for
asphalt layers as given in the guidelines is presented
in Table 1; in this study, it was taken as 3000MPa
which corresponds to DBM VG40, and a temperature
of 35C which has been suggested as the Average
Annual pavement Temperature for the plains in India.
The resilient modulus of subgrade and granular layers
was calculated using the equations recommended by
the guidelines as given by Equations (1) and (2).
Table 1 Resilient Modulus of Bituminous Mixes
[IRC:37-2012]
Mix Type Temperature (C)
20 25 30 35 40
BC and DBM (VG10) 2300 2000 1450 1000 800
BC and DBM (VG30) 3500 3000 2500 1700 1250
BC and DBM (VG40) 6000 5000 4000 3000 2000
BC and DBM
(Modifed Binder)
5700 3800 2400 1650 1300
BM (VG10) 500 MPa at 35 C
BM (VG30) 700 MPa at 35 C
M
R
=10 CBR for CBR 5
M
R
=17.6 (CBR)
0.64
for CBR 5 (1)
M
R
Modulus of subgrade (MPa)
CBR California Bearing Ratio of subgrade (%)
E =M
R
0.2 h
0.45
(2)
E Modulus of granular base (MPa)
h Thickness of granular base (mm)
Other pavement design parameters such as wheel
spacing, tyre contact pressure, tyre contact radius
were suitably chosen based on available literature
for Indian conditions (Maji and Das, 2006) and are
presented in Table 2. The analysis was done using the
pavement design and analysis software KENPAVE
developed by Huang (2004) at the University of
Kentucky. It accepts layer thickness, loading and
material characteristics as inputs and has provisions
for entering various indigenous data such as rutting
and fatigue life coeffcients, wheel spacing, tyre
pressure etc. The analysis is based on the linear elastic,
multilayer theory and the stresses and strains developed
in various layers of the pavement are obtained. The
pavements were designed on the concept of damage
ratio, defned as the ratio of actual load repetitions
to allowable load repetitions. A value greater than 1
signifes failure while a value less than 1 implies the
TECHNICAL PAPERS
pavement can be subjected to more number of load
repetitions. A tolerance of 0.1 was adopted.
Table 2 Design Parameters for KENPAVE
(IRC:37-2012)
Parameter Value
Lane Distribution Factor (F) 0.75
Vehicle Damage Factor (D) 4.5
Traffc growth rate 5%
Resilient Modulus of Subgrade 50MPa
Poissons ratio for HMA 0.5
Poissons ratio for GB, TSG and subgrade 0.4
In order to compute the damage ratio, the allowable
repetitions are calculated in terms of the fatigue and
rutting lives. For National highways and Expressways
having design traffc exceeding 30msa, fatigue and
rutting equations with 90% reliability is recommended
which are given by equations (3) and (4) respectively.
Currently, modifed binders like Polymer and Crumb
Rubber Modifed binders are used that have fatigue
lives two to ten times higher than the normal mixes
depending upon the binder content; this property can
be utilized in designing high fatigue life bituminous
pavements after carrying out laboratory tests. The
equations adopted for this study are as follows:
N
f
=0.711 10
4

1 1
389 0854
t R
M
|
\
|
.
|

|
\
|
.
|
. .
(3)
N
f
Number of cumulative standard axles to produce
20% cracked surface area
t
Tensile strain at the bottom of asphalt concrete
(in micro strain)
E Modulus of elasticity of bituminous surfacing
(MPa)
N
r
=1.41 10
8

1
45337
v
|
\
|
.
|
.
(4)
N
r
Number of cumulative standard axles to produce
rutting of 20mm
v
Vertical subgrade strain (in micro strain).
Though it is possible to determine progression of
cracking and rutting in bituminous pavements by
adopting cumulative damage principle, feld data is not
yet available and the concept of equivalent standard
axle load repetitions is currently the best available
option for thickness design of bituminous pavements.
The expected traffc loading is computed on the basis
of the vehicle damage factor, given by
N =
356 1 1 +
( ) r
r
n
A D F (5)
N Cumulative number of repetitions in terms of
million standard axles
r Expected traffc growth
n Design life
A Initial traffc in the year of completion in terms
of CVPD
D Lane Distribution Factor
F Vehicle Damage Factor
The pavements designed for 50, 100 and 150 msa
using MED principles are shown in Table 3, to study
the effect of increasing the thickness of the HMA
layer as compared to the granular layer. In order to
evaluate the monetary consequence of increasing
the HMA layer thickness, a pavement section was
designed for a traffc of 66.51msa corresponding to an
initial traffc of 2000 CVPD and design life 15 years
(obtained from Eq. 5). For the assessment, a pavement
design for a Bituminous pavement with Granular Base
and Granular sub-base corresponding to a CBR of 5%
and the traffc range of 51-100msa was adopted from
IRC:37-2012; and was compared with the pavement
section with an thicker HMA layer. To measure the
effect of stiffness of base layer, pavements with
granular base modulus varying from 300 to 1000 MPa
and a typical value of 450 MPa were considered; and
the design alternatives are presented in Table 4. These
values of base modulus have been recommended for
the aggregate layer sandwiched between a bituminous
surface and a cementitious base as the strong support
from cementitious base results in higher modulus. In
this study, the long-lasting designs include a Treated
Subgrade (TSG) which is chemically stabilized
subgrade overlying the natural subgrade that provides
TECHNICAL PAPERS
a very strong foundation. Thus the adoption of these
values for the granular base modulus can be justifed.
For the stabilization of the subgrade, a number of
new soil stabilizers are available commercially and
many of them have undergone trials in different
locations in India. They should be evaluated for their
durability and structural parameters for pavement
design (IRC:37-2012). The resilient modulus of the
treated subgrade can then be determined from feld or
laboratory tests; in this study, the modulus of TSG was
adopted as 210MPa from available literature (Tarefder
et al, 2010). The typical values of treated subgrade
thickness for perpetual pavements is recommended as
300mm (IDOT 2002); however as the pavement was
designed only for 15 years, this value is reduced to
100mm.
Table 3 Pavement Sections for 50, 100 and 150 msa
Traffc (msa) Type of
Pavement
Pavement thickness (mm) Damage
Ratio
Bituminous
Surfacing
Granular
Base
Granular
Sub-base
Total
50 Thick granular layer 155 250 300 705 0.844
Thick HMA layer 170 150 200 520 0.981
Thick HMA layer 200 150 200 550 0.99
Thick HMA layer 220 150 200 570 0.98
Table 4 Pavements Designed for 15 Years and 2000 CVPD Initial Traffc (66 msa)
Trial Type of
Pavement
Thickness (mm) Modulus of
GB (MPa)
Remarks
BC DBM GB GSB TSG Total
1 Conventional 50 120 250 300 - 720 171 IRC recommended
2 Long-Lasting 50 170 100 100 420 109 Increased HMA
3 Long-Lasting 50 150 150 - 100 450 300 TSG in place of GSB
4.2 Perpetual Pavements Designed for 50 Years
The methodology for perpetual pavement design is
similar to the one adopted for conventional design
with the exception that the limiting parameters
are horizontal tensile strain below the HMA layer
and vertical compressive strain above the natural
subgrade instead of damage ratio. This is represented
diagrammatically in Fig.1. The design is considered
adequate if the former and latter are 70s and the 200s
respectively with a tolerance of 1 s. The pavement
sections were designed with a treated subgrade layer
of thickness, 250mm and the base modulus varied as
before. The values are presented in Table 5.
TECHNICAL PAPERS
Table 5 Perpetual Pavements Designed for 50 Years (656 msa)
Trial Type of
Pavement
Thickness (mm) Modulus
of GB
(MPa)
Strains DR
BC DBM GB TSG Total Tensile Compressive
1 Deep-strength 50 230 150 300 730 300 71.3 163.9 0.637
2 Deep-strength 50 210 150 300 710 450 70.05 171.7 0.593
3 Deep-strength 50 170 150 300 670 1000 57.5 177.7 0.461
Fig. 1 Perpetual Pavement Design Concept
In order to evaluate the performance of the perpetual
pavement, the designed pavement sections were
analysed for an expected initial traffc of 5000 CVPD
(in both directions) and a design life of 50 years. In
other words, the adequacy of the sections so designed
by keeping the critical pavement responses below
the endurance limits, was verifed by comparing the
allowable traffc repetitions with the expected traffc
demand of 656 msa, as determined from Equation 5.
5 LIFE CYCLE COST ANALYSIS
The Life Cycle Cost (LCC) of an asset is defned as
the total cost, in present value or annual value that
includes the initial costs, Maintenance, Repair and
Renewal (MR&R) costs over the service life or a
specifed life cycle. LCC is based on an understanding
that the value of money changes with time and as a
result, expenditures made at different times are not
equal. This concept, referred to as the time value
of money, is the basis for Life Cycle Cost Analysis
(LCCA). LCCA is a process for evaluating the total
economic cost of an asset by analyzing initial costs and
discounted future expenditures such as maintenance,
operational, user, and social costs over the service life
or life cycle of an asset.
In order to evaluate the feasibility and cost-
effectiveness of all the design alternatives, LCCA
TECHNICAL PAPERS
was carried out using LCCA Express. It calculates the
Net Present Value (NPV) of the cost per lane-mile by
accepting load spectra, traffc growth rate, unit cost of
materials and construction of various layers, density
of various layers and maintenance costs as inputs;
Table 6 shows the design parameters that were used
in the study. The discount rate is the interest rate by
which future costs will be converted to present value,
and has been adopted as 4% in this study. In other
words, it is the percentage by which the cost of future
benefts will be reduced to present value (as if the
future beneft takes place in the present day). Real
discount rates (as opposed to nominal discount rates)
refect only the true time value of money without
including the general rate of infation and typically
range from 3% to 5%. The Consumer Price Index
(CPI) that measures changes in the price level of
consumer goods and services was assumed as 174.4.
The CPI is a statistical estimate constructed using the
prices of a sample of representative items whose prices
are collected periodically; and the annual percentage
change in a CPI is used as a measure of infation. The
densities of the materials for the different layers used
in the study, and the unit costs of materials adopted
from the 2011-12 Schedule of Rates (Karnataka Public
Works Department) are presented in Table 7.
Table 6 Design Parameters for LCCA
Parameter Value
Project Length 20km
Number of Lanes 4
Pavement Width 3.5 m
No of shoulders 2
Average shoulder width 2.5 m
Speed limit 90 kmph
Analysis Period 15 or 50 years
Discount rate 4%
Current CPI 173.644
Table 7 Layer Densities and Cost
Layer Modulus
(MPa)
Density Cost
pcf kg/m
3
(Rs/m
3
) (Rs/ton)
BC 3000 145 2324 8650 3722
DBM 3000 145 2324 7100 3055
Granular
Base/Sub-
base
109 135 2161 723 335
171 135 2161 723 335
300 135 2161 733 339
450 135 2161 733 339
1000 135 2161 982 454
TSG 210 130 1998 174 87
The life-cycle costs were calculated for pavement
designed for 15 years, to evaluate the monetary
consequence of increasing the thickness of the HMA.
Further, the requirement of the treated subgrade and
the stiffer base materials are evaluated through the life-
cycle costs. In the case of the long-lasting pavements,
the life-cycle costs are compared for the pavement
section designed with the base modulus of 450 MPa,
and the costs incurred by designing conventional
pavements at the end of 50 years.
Maintenance Strategy
The maintenance strategy adopted, for the pavements
designed for 15 years, included the removal and
replacement of the Bituminous Concrete (BC)
course every 7 years. In the case of the long lasting
pavements, the BC course was replaced every 10
years, as these pavements are designed for little
maintenance requirements. This design alternative
is compared with the conventional pavement, whose
design life is extended to 50 years, by proving overlays
at the end of 15 years. The conventional pavements
were also subjected to a maintenance strategy every
7 years, by replacing the BC layer. In other words,
the life-cycle costs are analysed by considering the
total costs incurred at the end of 50 years; where in
the case of the conventional pavement the entire HMA
layer is removed and replaced, while the long lasting
pavements require only the replacement of the BC.
The labour costs were assumed to be 5% of the total
material costs.
TECHNICAL PAPERS
6 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The basic premise of perpetual pavements is that
an adequately thick HMA layer can preclude the
distresses developed below the pavement. While
the same can be achieved with a thicker granular
layer, the pavement thus produced will be thicker.
This is observed in Table 3 wherein for each traffc
load of 50, 100 and 150msa there is an appreciable
reduction in overall pavement thickness of about 25%
(180 mm) by increasing the HMA thickness by only
3% (200 mm).
From an analysis of Table 4, a similar observation is
made from the frst two design alternatives wherein
an increase of 50 mm in HMA thickness, led to
an overall reduction of 300 mm. However, from
Table 8 it can be noted that although the total
pavement thickness has been reduced from 720 mm to
420 mm, the total cost of construction is increased by
around 5.65% for the second alternative. This increase
can be attributed to the high cost of the HMA layer.
The other design alternatives included the provision of
a TSG layer, with varying values of base modulus. It
can be seen that in the case of pavements designed for
15 years, the treated subgrade layer and the increase
in stiffness of the base layer had an insignifcant effect
of the overall design thickness (as compared to the
second alternative). However, an analysis of the life-
cycle costs shows that the provision of 10cm of the
Treated Subgrade layer results in a saving of 1.95% of
the total cost while by increasing the stiffness of base
modulus to 1000 MPa, the total costs can be reduced
by around 10.58%. Thus, the provision of increased
HMA thickness can be justifed only by the provision
of very strong foundation and base materials.
Table 8 LCC for 15 Year Pavements
Trial Type of pavement Construction
cost Rs/km
Maintenance
cost Rs/km
User delay
cost Rs/km
Total cost
Rs/km
Total cost
(Rs)
% Savings
1 Conventional 38277290 8501069 43661 46822019 93,64,40,380 -
2 Conventional 40920680 8501069 43661 49465410 98,93,08,200 -5.65%
3 Deep-strength
(300 MPa GB)
37366688 8501069 43661 45911418 91,82,28,360 +1.95%
4 Deep-strength
(450 MPa GB)
35732359 8501069 43661 44277088 88,55,41,760 +5.43%
5 Deep-strength
(1000 MPa GB)
33322879 8501069 43661 41867608 83,73,52,160 +10.58%
In the case of long-lasting pavements, a TSG layer of
300 mm is provided above the subgrade to provide a
cost-effective design; and base modulus stiffness was
increased from 300 MPa to 1000 MPa, which had a
signifcant effect on overall design thickness as seen
in Table 5. The adequacy of the design was evaluated
for an expected traffc of 656 msa on the basis of the
damage ratio. As these values are signifcantly less
than 1, the design is considered adequate for all the
alternatives presented in Table 5. The design and
construction of long-lasting pavements is justifed
only if the life-cycle costs are lower than that required
for the construction of the conventional pavements.
It can be seen from Table 9, in the case of the design
alternative with GB of modulus 300 MPa, the total
cost at the end of 50 years is reduced by around 4.47%
only, while there is reduction of around 9.76% in the
case of the pavement section having GB of modulus
450 MPa. However, it can be seen that there is a saving
of around 19.4% of the total cost can be achieved for
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Table 9 LCC for 50 Year Pavements
Trial Type of
pavement
Construction
cost Rs/km
Maintenance
cost Rs/km
User
delay cost
Rs/km
Total cost
Rs/km
Total cost
(Rs)
% Savings
1 Conventional
( 3 Overlays )
38277289 27196320 43661 65517270 1310345396 -
2 Deep-strength
(300 MPa GB)
51167802 11373411 43661 62584873 1251697466 +4.47576
3 Deep-strength
(450 MPa GB)
47899134 11373411 43661 59316206 1186324120 +9.46478
4 Deep-strength
(1000 MPa GB)
41361791 11373411 43661 52778863 1055577255 +19.4428
long-lasting pavements, with a GB of 1000 MPa,
when compared to the conventional pavements whose
design life has been extended to 50 years through the
provision of 3 overlays.
7 CONCLUSIONS
It can be concluded that perpetual pavements hold a
lot of promise, but require extensive feld study for
suitable implementation on Indian roads. Though
the pavement thicknesses proposed are not absolute,
they provide a basis of comparing conventional
asphalt pavements with perpetual pavements. The
study shows that although the concept of perpetual
pavements advocates the increase of HMA thickness
to keep the critical strains within the threshold limits,
the provision of a stable foundation and the high
stiffness base materials are equally signifcant from
a fnancial perspective. This can be attributed to the
increasing cost of asphalt in India, with the rising price
of crude oil. Thus, the implementation of long-lasting
pavements in India calls for development in the area of
soil stabilization or the provision of treated subgrade,
and the use of high stiffness base materials.
The study is not without its limitations. The values
proposed are based on a theoretical approach where
uniform stress distribution along the pavement is
assumed which is not the case in real life. Elastic
layered systems approach is used which assumes
linear elasticity of all layers ignoring the viscoelastic
properties of bitumen. Parameters such as Discount
Ratio and CPI were arbitrarily assumed. However,
the aim of this study was not to propose directly
implementable results in the feld but only a
comparison of perpetual pavement and the MED. The
need for extensive study on Perpetual pavements is
stressed in the study. This can only be done by the
construction of trial sections and subjecting them
to real life loads over 3 to 4 years so that pavement
responses can be physically measured. Such studies
have been performed by the National Centre for
Asphalt Technology (NCAT), Auburn University and
have yielded positive results which only makes it
all the more necessary for India to experiment with
Perpetual Pavements.
REFERENCES
1. Asphalt Pavement Alliance (APA)., Perpetual Pavements:
A Synthesis, APA 101, Lanham, Maryland, 2002.
2. Harvey, J ., Monismith, C., Bejarano, M., Tsai B.W. and
Kannekanti V., Long-Life AC Pavements: A Discussion
of Design and Construction Criteria based on California
Experience. Proceedings. Intl. Symp. on Design and
Construction of Long Lasting Asphalt Pavements, National
Center for Asphalt Technology. Auburn University,
Alabama, pp. 285-334, 2004.
3. Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT), Subgrade
Stability Manual, Policy MAT-10, Springfeld, 1982.
4. Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) (2002),
Standard Specifcations for Road and Bridge Construction,
Illinois Department of Transportation, Springfeld.
TECHNICAL PAPERS
5. IRC:37-2012, Tentative Guidelines for the Design of
Flexible Pavement, (The Indian Roads Congress: New
Delhi).
6. Kandhal, P. S., Sinha, V.K. and Veeraragavan, A.,
A Critical Review of Bituminous Paving Mixes Used
in India, Indian Highways, Indian Roads Congress,
pp. 113-132, 2007.
7. Maji, A. and Das, A., Reliability Considerations of
Bituminous Pavement Design by Mechanistic-Empirical
Approach, International J ournal of Pavement Engineering,
2008, 9(1), 19-31.
8. Monismith, C.L. and McLean, D.B. Technology of Thick
Lift Construction: Structural Design Considerations,
Proceedings of The Association of Asphalt Paving
Technologists, Vol. 41, pp. 258-304, 1972.
9. NCHRP, Guide for Mechanistic-Empirical Design of New
and Rehabilitated Pavement Structures, Transportation
Research Board, National Research Council, 2004.
10. Newcomb, D. E., Willis, R. and Timm, D. H., Perpetual
Asphalt Pavements A Synthesis, Asphalt Pavement
Alliance, APA 101, Lanham, Maryland, 2010.
11. Tarefder, R. A. and Bateman, D., Design of Optimal
Perpetual Pavement Structure, J . Transp. Engrg., ASCE,
2010,.
12. Walubita, L.F., Liu, W., Scullion, T. and Leidy, J ., Modeling
Perpetual Pavements Using the Flexible Pavement System
(FPS) Software. Paper submitted to 87
th
Annual Meeting,
Transportation Research Board, Washington, 2008.
13. Willis, J . R. and Timm, D. H., 2009. A Comparison of
Laboratory Thresholds to Measured Strains in Full-
Scale Pavements, Proceedings of Intl. Conf. on Perpetual
Pavements, Ohio University, Columbus, 2009.
14. Yang, Y., Gao, G. and Linn, W., Timms, D.H., Priest, A.,
Huber, G.A. and Andrewski, D.A. Perpetual Pavement
Design in China, International Conference on Perpetual
Pavement, Ohio Research Institute for Transportation and
the Environment, Stocker Center, Athens, Ohio, 2006.
ABSTRACT
This paper presents the viability of a BOT road project based on
support loan concept. Interest of debt is one of the most important
parameters for the viability of a project. In India interest rate is in
the range of 15-18% annually. The road project with low traffc
and high project cost may be infeasible. In order to viable the
project, support loan concept has been proposed in this paper.
This paper presents the changes values of various fnancial viable
parameters with the use of support loan with a real case study.
This paper presents the results normal debt and support loan with
different interest rates and different payback periods and develops
a methodology for support loan for the viability of a project. It
has been found longer payback period is also more benefcial.
Financial return is more with low rate of interest of debt. A real
case study has been compared with support loan and subsidy
provision and fnd out best option after projecting both values at
the end of payback period with an example calculation presented
in Annexure 1. It has been found that support loan provision is
more benefcial for the government instead of subsidy option for
the viability of a project. Support loan concept is recommended
for the viability of the project.
1 INTRODUCTION
Inadequate transport infrastructure has been recognized
as an impediment to the industrial and economic
progress of any country. Governments worldwide
invariably must cope with the widening gap between
needed investments and available budgetary resources.
They increasingly attempt to involve the private sector
in the fnancing, design, construction, and operation of
major infrastructure projects, with a view to exploit the
private initiatives to implement public projects. In this
context, the Build Operate Transfer (BOT) concept is
becoming a popular mode of privatization of transport
infrastructure development (Tiong 1995).
SUPPORT LOAN CONCEPT FOR THE VIABILITY OF
A BOT ROAD PROJECT
SWAPAN KUMAR BAGUI* AND AMBARISH GHOSH**
In recent years governments in many countries
have begun privatizing transportation infrastructure
sectors. Some of the forces driving this movement
include a scarcity of public resources, an increase
in the demand for better service and a political trend
toward the deregulation of infrastructures from public
monopoly.
The BOT project is essentially a form of leasing, where
the government (project sponsor) allows a private
entrepreneur (project promoter) to design, fnance,
and build an infrastructure facility. In return, the
project promoter is permitted to collect tolls (user fee)
and operate the facility for a specifed period (called
the concession period), during which he is expected
to recover all of his costs and earn a reasonable proft.
At the end of the concession period, the ownership
of the facility is transferred to the government. This
arrangement facilitates the implementation of capital
intensive infrastructure projects by the government
with funds from outside the budget allocation, while
transferring the risks involved to the private sector.
Prior experience in BOT projects is limited in India,
though varied levels of success with such projects have
been reported in other countries such as Malaysia,
Thailand, Mexico, and China. However, for successful
implementation, it is essential for both the government
and the private project promoters to be fully aware
of the prospects and pitfalls of these projects. The
conventional fnancial analysis with deterministic
or point estimates of the important parameters is
variables of a transport infrastructure project such as
the construction, operation, and maintenance costs, the
traffc volume, and the toll revenue are not amenable
* PhD Student,
** Professor,
Dept. of Civil Engg., Bengal Engg. and Science University, Shibpur, Howrah
TECHNICAL PAPERS
to precise prediction, and the fnancial performance
cannot be assessed accurately. For a realistic and
meaningful analysis of the fnancial viability of BOT
projects, the consideration of risk and uncertainty
should be explicitly incorporated.
Quite often, private investment in public infrastructure
occurs within the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT)
model where a public entity, the Government, and a
private entity, the Sponsor, enter into an agreement
where the Sponsor is bound to design, build, fnance
and operate an infrastructure project on behalf of
the Government for a predetermined period of time,
the concession period. At the end of the concession
period, the Sponsor transfers its ownership rights back
to the Government. Typically, the Sponsor fnances the
BOT investment through project fnance rather than
corporate loans .This introduces another active party,
the Lender. Thus, the BOT model becomes a trilateral
negotiation game with complex interrelationships.
The critical success factor for a BOT project is the
proft margin of the Concessionaire.
Financing is one of the most signifcant issues in the
BOT project. Only with suffcient capital can a BOT
project be successfully carried out (Tiong 1995).
However, in the process of fnancial planning, there
are so many details included that appropriate fnancial
planning procedures and fnancial assessment methods
should be developed in order to evaluate the viability
of a project and come up with the best scenario.
Four fnancial assessment methods are generally
available for the viability of a BOT project namely,
NPV.FIRR, the payback period method, and the
discount payback period method. These can be defned
as follows (Brigham et al. 1997):
Net Present Value (NPV) method: This method
is to discount all the cash fows back to the
present year (or a specifc year). A zero value
of NPV represents the breakeven point of a
project. If the value of NPV is zero or positive,
the project is worth investing. Conversely, if the
value of NPV is negative, it is better to decline
the project.
Internal Rate of Return (IRR) method: IRR uses
the rate of return that assumes the NPV value
of a project to be zero. To evaluate a project
with IRR, just compare it to the estimated cost
of capital. If the IRR is positive, the project is
acceptable, depending on need/importance of
the project.
Payback period method: This method involves
the discounting. When the sum of zero is
reached, the payback period is found. Payback
period should be lesser than concession period.
Discount payback period method: This is almost
the same as the payback period method but
discounting all cash fows back to a specifed
year.
A BOT transport infrastructure project may
be considered as fnancially viable, when the
following the conditions are simultaneously satisifed
(Malini 1998):
The NPV for the project should be positive. The
discount rate for fnancial analysis may include a risk
premium over the current commercial lending rate.
The fnancial IRR should have a value greater than the
discount rate.
The cash fow (liquidity) situation in each year of
the concession period should be satisfactory. In other
words, the cash balance at the end of every year should
be positive.
Payback period/Break down year should be lesser
than concession period.
Above four conditions may not be satisfed in real
project case study and project may not be viable
fnancially. To make viable, some modifcations may
be required.
To make the project viable, following modifcations
can be considered:
Payback period to be increased ;
Recommend for Subsidy ;
TECHNICAL PAPERS
Modifcation the percentage of Equity ;and
Provision of Rigid pavement option with
followings-
- 0% Fly ash
- 20% Fly ash
- 30% Fly ash
- 40% Fly ash
- 50% Fly ash
- 60% Fly ash
- Provision of soft Loan and Support loan
from fnancial institutes like World Bank,
Asian Development Bank etc.
A soft loan is a loan with a below market rate of interest.
This is also known as soft fnancing. Sometimes soft
loans provide other concessions to borrowers, such
as long repayment periods or interest holidays. Soft
loans are usually provided by governments to projects
they think are worthwhile. The World Bank and
other development institutions provide soft loans to
developing countries.
The bank charges LIBOR plus a spread. LIBOR is the
London Interbank interest rate and currently hovering
around 2%. the spread is around 25 basis points. The
lender has to, however, absorb, the foreign currency
risks which would appreciate is signifcant this point.
LIBOR is defned as: The rate at which an individual
Contributor Panel bank could borrow funds, were it
to do so by asking for and then accepting inter-bank
offers in reasonable market size, just prior to 11.00
London time.
BBA (British Bank Association) LIBOR is not a
compounded rate but is calculated on the basis of
actual days in funding period/360*. Therefore, the
formula is as follows:
Interest Due =Principle Sum
bbalibor Rate
100
interest period
Number or dayin
360
*
|
\
|
.
|
||
\
|
.
|
|
|
+Spread is around 25 basis point
It has been found from case study, these parameters
improve net present value /FIRR. Variation of Interest
rate of debt, the only single parameter may improve
fnancial parameters.
1.1 Literature Review
The Sydney tunnel and the Malaysian expressway
received support loans from the governments. For
the Malaysian project, the government allocated
$235,000,000 (about 13% of the total project cost) in
start-up fnance toward the construction costs. The loan
was payable over 25 years, including a 15-year grace
period and a fxed interest rate of 8% per annum. For
the Sydney tunnel, the government even provided an
interest-free loan of $125,000,000 (about 23% of total
project costs) to cover the preliminary construction
costs of the tunnel. The loan was to be repaid over
30 years. Instead of providing loans, the Chinese
government assisted in arranging an emergency loan
facility for the sponsors to provide funds in the events
of force majeure. (Tiong 1990).
2 LEAD FROM PAST STUDY
From past studies, it is found that research work on
support loan ` carried by previous researchers is very
limited. So support loan concept may be introduced in
road BOT project and details fnancial analysis with a
real case study to be carried out.
2.1 Scope
Based on the lead from previous work, it is felt
that support loan concept can be introduced for the
viability of a project. Present research work is planned
to carryout a real case study which was originally
infeasible for base case. After modifying interest rate,
the same project is found fnancially viable.
3 CASE STUDY
A case study has been considered for selected sections
of National Highway (NH) No. 4.
The homogeneous sections are presented in Table 1.
TECHNICAL PAPERS
Table 1 Identifcation of Homogeneous Sections
Section Length (km)
HS-01 23
HS-02 67
HS-03 33
The Annual Average Daily Traffc (AADT) values are
used for future projections for 30 years analysis period.
Growth rate factors are taken as 5 % as recommended
by Model Concession Agreement, NHAI, 2000.
Tollable traffc count is shown in Table 2.
Table 2 Annual Average Daily Tollable Traffc
Vehicle Type HS 1 HS 2 HS 3
Car/Van/jeep 2736 3675 4741
Mini Bus 74 111 194
Bus 1076 864 1205
Light Goods Vehicles 443 983 1335
2 Axle 2180 2179 3298
3 Axle 855 1168 1367
Multi- Axle Vehicle 108 179 315
3.1 Toll Rate
Toll rate is selected using guideline prepared by
the Government of India. Infation rate has been
determined based on Source; Reserve Bank of India
Bulletin, 2000.Whole price index for all commodities
is found out 8.3%.
Using this value future toll rate has been projected for
future year and toll rate for the opening year, 2004 is
mentioned in Table 3.Toll rate increasing factor for
the year 2004 is 1.083
7
=1.74.
Table 3 Toll Rate Per/km Vehicle Wise
Year Car Full
Bus
Multi
Axle
LCV 2A, 3A
Truck
Toll Rate Rs (1997) 0.28 1.05 1.6 0.60 1.10
Toll Rate Rs (2004) 0.52 1.95 2.8 1.03 1.81
Toll Rate Rs (2008) 0.67 2.33 3.74 1.16 2.35
Toll Rate Rs (2012) 0.89 3.12 5.00 1.56 3.12
3.2 Project Cost
Project cost worked out for fexible pavement. This
cost includes the cost of glare screen barrier. The
average project cost per kilometer is found Rs 42.2
Million
3.3 Financial Analysis
Financial analysis for base case has been carried out
taking the following major maintenance and operation
costs:
Annual Routine Maintenance (repair of pot hole,
clearing C D structure etc) Cost (Rs 0.2 million
per km).
Periodic Maintenance (Overlay every 5
th
year) Cost
(Rs 2.8 million per km).
Toll Operation (Toll administrative cost) Cost
(Rs 6 million for toll plaza per year).
Financial analysis is carried out varying equity from
10% to 90%. Concession period is taken 20 years and
payback period is taken 10 years for normal debt and
10 years for support loan for link 1. Interest on normal
debt and return on equity are assumed 15% and 20%.
Interest rate of support loan is varied. Project road is
divided into three contract packages. For analysis,
link 1is considered.
4 FORMULATION OF FINANCIAL MODEL
A fnancial model is developed using Excel sheet. It is
used to support decision making in project evaluation.
The project viability is analyzed from the equity
holders perspective in the project. The frst step in
any investment evaluation is to gather the appropriate
information on the project costs and calculate the
cash.
Assumptions and Theoretical Framework
The following are the assumptions for the model:
1. The fnancing of a project is raised by a
combination of equity and debt. The net cash
TECHNICAL PAPERS
fow during the construction period is negative
and positive during the operation period.
2. A loan is available from one source or from
multiple sources with the same term of annual
equal installments.
3. Land acquisition cost is borne by the
Government of India.
5. The cash fows during construction are
predestinated.
7. The toll rate vehicle mode wise shall be the rate
fxed by the Government of India
8. Complete depreciation of the Total Project Cost
(TPC) is allowed during the operation period.
4.1 Theoretical Framework
Ranasinghe (1996) has developed a simplifed
model to calculate TPC for infrastructure projects in
developing countries, which is the starting point of the
fnancial analysis and defned below:
TPC=BC+EDC+IDC+Financing Change (1)
where,
BC =base cost or constant value cost of the project
estimated at market prices of a predetermined
year;
EDC =the cost escalation during construction; and
IDC =the interest during construction.
After the completion of construction, revenue is
generated from toll from vehicle during the operation
period, which is fxed based on technical parametre of
the project. The net annual cash available in current
value given by :
NCAi = PBITi - TAXi + DEPi - Di for i
=1,2, . . . ,m (2)
Where,
PBITi = Proft Before Interest and Tax;
TAXi =tax;
DEPi =Depreciation; and
Di =annual Debt Installment for ith year.
Corporate tax @ 35% to be paid as decided by
Government of India.
TAXi =(PBITi - INTi). for i =1,2, . . . , m (3)
where
INTi =interest to be paid in the ith year.
4.2 Depreciation
Depreciation is a non-cash expense: it only reduces
taxable income and provides an annual tax advantage
equal to the product of depreciation and the (marginal)
tax rate, but it does not lead to a cash outfow from the
company. The most common method for depreciation
is straight-line depreciation. Under this method,
annual depreciation equals a constant proportion of
the initial investment. In this model, it is assumed that
TPC can be depreciable in its entirety. Thus
DEPi =
TPC
m
for i =1,2,3---- (4)
Operation and Maintenance (OM) cost includes OM
of road cost, personnel salaries, indirect costs, and
insurance cost. These costs are calculated separately
and used in fnancial model.
The view point of equity holders is focused on the
main project metrics, internal rate of return and Net
Present Value (NPV). The IRR and NPV are the most
common and fundamental economic decision criteria
employed in practice (Lohmann 1988). Financial
analysis has been carried out for concession period
of 20 years for base case for the Link HS01(23 km
length, Refer Table 1) without any modifcation for the
viability of the project. Equity is considered 20% and
debt is equal to 80%.Interest rate of debt and return on
equity are assumed as 15% and 20% respectively for
carrying out fnancial analysis. Summary of results of
fnancial analysis for base case and detail calculation
are shown in Table 4 and Annexure 1 (attached end of
the paper) respectively.
TECHNICAL PAPERS
Table 4 Financial Results for Base Case
FIRR (%) NPV (Rs Million)
7.84 -353.7
From Table 4, it is found that the entire project is not
viable fnancially.
In order to viable the project, support loan concept has
been adopted with following variables:
Base case i.e. debt interest 15%;
Debt interest is 7.5% to be availed by the
government;
Debt interest is 5% to be availed by the
government;
100% Debt with interest is 0% to be availed by
the government;
the government;
the government;
the government.
Results are shown in Tables 5, 6, Fig.1 and Fig.2.
Table 5 Financial Return and NPV for Various Debt Interest for Payback Period 10 Years
Equity(%) Base Case @ 15%
Interest
Base Case @ 7.5%
Interest
Base Case @ 5% Interest Base Case @ 0% Interest
NPV
(Rs Million)
FIRR (%) NPV
(Rs Million)
FIRR (%) NPV
(Rs Million)
FIRR (%) NPV
(Rs Million)
FIRR (%)
10 -267.2 8.57 323.3 14.14 701.6 16.26 2064.5 20.88
20 -364.2 7.56 122.7 11.95 402 13.5 1317.1 16.7
30 -455 6.79 -52.44 10.43 156.4 11.67 776.9 14.14
40 -539.8 6.17 -205.3 9.27 -48.4 10.31 377 12.33
50 -618.7 5.68 -340.2 8.35 -221.6 9.23 73.4 10.92
60 -692 5.27 -406.3 7.59 -370.2 8.34 -163.4 9.78
70 -759.3 4.92 -568 6.94 -499.5 7.99 -353.1 8.81
80 -821.2 4.62 -665.2 6.34 -613 6.94 -509.3 7.98
90 -877.6 4.4 -753.3 5.9 -714 6.37 -641.2 7.25
Fig.1 Variation NPV vs Equity
Table 6 Financial Return and NPV for
Payback Period 15 Years
Equity (%) Base Case @ 0% Interest
NPV FIRR
10 2105.9 27.7
20 1383.9 20.31
30 924.85 17.2
40 465.8 14.12
50 196.775 12.5
60 -72.25 10.91
70 -248.125 9.8
80 -424 8.8
90 -551.35 7.9
TECHNICAL PAPERS
Changing payback period from 10 years to 15 years,
NPV and FIRR values are shown in Tables 5 and 6.
From these tables, it is found that NPV and FIRR are
more for payback period of 15 years than that of 10
years payback period.
The correlation between NPV vs equity ,FIRR vs
equity are shown in Fig.1 and Fig.2. Regression
equations and R
2
values are shown in Table 7. The
results are statically signifcant.
Fig.2 Variation FIRR vs Equity
Table 7 Regression Equation for NPV and FIRR
Interest
(%)
Regression Equation for NPV Regression Equation for FIRR
Equation R
2
Equation R2
15.0 NPV =- 7.62 E - 218.3 0.99 FIRR =8.51 - 0.05 E 0.95
7.5 NPV =375.8 - 13.17 E 0.98 FIRR =13.86 - 0.097 E 0.94
5.0 NPV =727.6 - 17.28 E 0.97 FIRR =18.11 - 0.24 E +0.01 E
2
0.99
0.0 NPV =2653 - 71.9 E - 0.4 E
2
0.99 FIRR =23.6 - 0.355 E +.002 E
2
0.99
Average Debt Coverage Ratio (ADCR),Time Interest
Earned (TIE) and for risk analysis are shown
in Table 8 for various support loan. Average debt
coverage ratio increases with increasing value of
equity and same for interest coverage ratio, TIE. Value
of also normal tendency of same value of similar
tendency with irregularity of some values. Brigham
et al. 1997 reported that Debt coverage ratio shows
the concessionaires ability to pay debt. The higher
the debt coverage ratio, the better the concessionaires
debt paying ability. The debt coverage ratio infuences
the willingness of banks to loan money to the
concessionaire. Generally speaking, a debt coverage
ratio at least equal to or larger than 1.0 is acceptable.
Considering this aspect and compare Table 9, support
loan with 5% and 0% is only viable option for the
project.
Table 8 Values of ADCR, TIE and for Various Support Loan
Equity
(%)
Interest @15% Interest @7.5% Interest @ 5% Interest @ 0%
ADCR TIE ADCR TIE ADCR TIE ADCR TIE
10 0.59 1.42 0.20 0.91 4.45 -.64 1.05 7.5 -.7 1.49 -.87
20 0.61 1.47 0.28 0.92 4.53 -.49 1.06 7.6 -.5 1.49 -.81
30 0.62 1.52 0.33 0.93 4.62 -.30 1.07 7.7 -.3 1.49 -.66
40 0.64 1.57 0.34 0.95 4.69 -.12 1.08 7.8 -.1 1.49 -.43
50 0.65 1.63 0.35 0.96 4.77 0.03 1.09 7.9 .03 1.50 -.19
60 0.67 1.85 0.36 0.97 4.86 0.13 1.10 8.0 .14 1.50 -.01
70 0.69 1.91 0.36 0.99 4.95 0.02 1.11 8.1 .21 1.50 0.12
80 0.71 1.98 0.35 1.00 5.04 0.25 1.13 8.2 .25 1.50 0.20
90 0.73 2.06 0.35 1.02 5.13 0.26 1.14 8.3 .28 1.50 0.25
TECHNICAL PAPERS
Financial analysis is also calculated for various
combination of support loan and normal debt and
results are shown in Table 9.
Table 9 Financial Return and NPV for Various Proportions Support Loan and
Normal Debt for Payback Period 10 Years
Equity(%) Support Loan 75% Support Loan 50% Support Loan 25%
NPV FIRR NPV FIRR NPV FIRR
10 932 16.94 302 13.68 -57.5 10.9
20 562 14 102.3 11.6 -183.1 9.47
30 267 12.1 -70.7 10.15 -298.7 8.47
40 28.4 10.6 -222 9.05 -395 7.8
50 -168.3 9.5 -355.6 8.2 -495 7.06
60 -332.2 8.9 -474.3 7.4 -585 6.5
70 -473.9 8.57 -580.6 6.8 -668 6.0
80 -595.9 7.1 -676.4 6.3 -745 5.6
90 -703.1 6.5 -763 5.8 -816 5.23
Fig.3 Cash Flow for 10 and 15 Years Payback Period
From Table 9, it is found that NPV and FIRR vary
linearly with equity with negative slope. Both are
increased with decreased of interest of loan/debt. With
decreasing rate of interest, the project has been found
viable with equity value varying from 20% to 50%.
Retutn is maximum for debt with 0% interest of debt.
Financial results reported in Tables 5 and 6 for
payback period 10 and 15 years. Return for payback
period 15 years is more than that of 10 years. This
is due to more positive cash fow (frst 15 years) for
15 years payback periods than that of 10 years payback
period. This is shown in Fig.3.
5 SUPPORT LOAN VS SUBSIDY
To viable the project at equity proportion 20%,support
loan and subsidy option are studied. It has been found
that the Government provided 41% subsidy for the
viability of the project. Subsidy amount is Rs 397.8
million. Assuming, this cost assumed to be alloted to
the Concessionaire in the three years of construction
periods @30%, 30% and 40% i.e Rs 119.4,119.4 and
159.2 million. The same project has been found viable
for support loan @ 41.2 % of total debt amount @
rate of interest 0%. Support loan can be phased out
@ Rs 95.97,95.97 and 127.97 million at 1
st
, 2
nd
and
3
rd
year respectively. Assuming government will
provide support loan from any fnancial institute @
15% interest. Total future values for both cases are
calculated at the end of payback period and shown
below:
Future values of subsidy =119.4* (1.15
13
) +119.4*
(1.15
12
) +159.2* (1.15
11
) =2114.1
Future value of support loan = 95.97* (1.15
13
) +
95.97* (1.15
12
) +127.97* (1.15
11
) =1699.3.
TECHNICAL PAPERS
From support loan government will return money
@ Rs 32 million for ten installment. Future value of
return money is 32 (1.15
10
+1.15
9
+1.15
8
+1.15
7
+
1.15
6
+1.15
5
+1.15
4
+1.15
3
+1.15
2
+1.15
1
) =747.2.
Net expense of the government in term of future
value at the end of payback period =1699.3 - 747.2
=952.1
Comparing above future values of net expense of
support loan, subsidy, it is clearly found that support
loan is better option than that of subsidy of the
project.
Again considering low rate interest of other country
like 8%. Analysis has been carried out. Subsidy and
support loan were found 8.7 % and 10 % to be required
for the viability of the project. Future values of support
loan and subsidy were calculated and found Rs 412.5
and 466.7 million. Hence support loan choice is best
option for the present project.
Subsidy and support loan option are studied .Subsidy
and support loan amount are found Rs 788.8 and
Rs 604 million. Hence support loan is best option .
6 CONCLUSIONS
Based on the present research work following
conclusions can be drawn:
Financial viability of a project should be
checked based on support loan concept.
If a project is not viable fnancially, modifcation
should be carried out by modifying rate of
interest of debt/introducing support loan
concept.
Net present value, fnancial internal rate of
return vary with negative slope with varying
equity proportion.
Average debt coverage ratio varies with positive
slope with equity.
Net present value, fnancial internal rate of
return vary with payback period. Higher
payback period yields better return.
Interest coverage ratio varies with positive
slope with varying equity for a given interest
rate of support loan. This varies with negative
slope with varying interest rate.
Support loan and subsidy options are studied,
it is found that support loan is best option and
it should be considered for viability of a BOT
project.
REFERENCES
1. Brigham, E. F., and Gapenski, L. C. (1997). Financial
ManagementTheory and Practice, 8
th
Ed., Dryden Press,
Fort Worth.
2. National Highways Authority of India (2000). Detailed
Project Reports of NH 4 km 592 to km 725, 2000.
3. Tiong, R. L. K. (1995). Impact of Finance Package
Versus Technical Solution in a BOT Tender. J . Constr.
Eng. Manage., ASCE,121(30), 304311.
4. Tiong, R. L. K. (1990). COMPARATIVE STUDY OF
BOT PROJ ECTS. J . Constr. Eng. Manage., ASCE,
121(30), 107-122.
5. Ranasinghe, M.(1996). Total Project Cost: A Simplifed
Model for Decision Makers J ournal of Construction
Management Econom., 14(3), 497-505.
6. Malini, E. (1998). Evaluation of Financial Viability of
BOT Transport Infrastructure Projects. J ournal of the
Indian Road Congress 58(1), 87123.
7. Lohman, J . R.(1988). The IRR, NPV and the Fallacy
of the Reinvestment Rate Assumption Engg. Econom.,
33(4), 303-330.
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ABSTRACT
Expressways in India are vastly different from other roads of the
country as vehicles such as bicycles, two-wheelers, three-wheelers
and bullock carts are not allowed in these roads and additionally,
there is no strict lane discipline. Nevertheless, there is not much
research literature specifc to these categories of roads. Hence,
this work aims to model traffc fow on Indian Expressways and
estimate its capacity using the micro-simulation model, VISSIM.
1 INTRODUCTION
An urban expressway is defned as an arterial highway
for motorized traffc, with divided carriageways for
high speed travel, with full control of access and
usually provided with grade separators at location
of intersections. They are the highest class of roads
in the Indian Road Network. Higher design speeds,
restriction on slow moving vehicles, varied traffc
composition with high amount of cars characterize
these roads. With such operational difference and with
many urban expressways such as Delhi-Gurgaon,
Eastern and Western Express Highways in Mumbai
being in existence and more number of them such as
the Yamuna and Kundli-Manesar-Palwal Expressways
being built, a thorough understanding of their
operation assumes high importance. The traffc fow
characteristics on expressways can be understood very
well by developing relationships among fundamental
parameters and also by determining the capacity and
Level-of-Service (LoS) by modelling the system using
appropriate analytical techniques, which will enable
the study of the characteristics over a wide range of the
infuencing factors. Additionally, there is a very less
literature available on capacity of expressways which
has also found a mention in the 11
th
Five Year plan
DERIVATION OF CAPACITY ESTIMATES FOR URBAN
EXPRESSWAY USING COMPUTER SIMULATION
RAVIKIRAN PUVVALA*, BALAJI PONNU** AND SHRINIWAS S ARKATKAR***
(2007-2012) report. Considering all the above, it is
imperative and timely to initiate a study on the capacity
and LoS criteria of expressways depending upon
the carriageway/roadway widths and other relevant
parameters. Thus this study is aimed at developing
capacity estimates for urban expressway segments
under varying roadway and traffc conditions, which
will help in meeting the countrys need for design,
analysis, operations and management of expressways.
To this end, the traffc fow on the Delhi-Gurgaon
Expressway has been studied and modelled through
both empirical and simulation approaches.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
Simulation has been recognized as one of the best
tools for modeling of traffc fow under homogeneous
as well as heterogeneous conditions. Fellendorf and
Vortisch (2001) presented the possibilities of validating
the microscopic traffc fow simulation model
VISSIM, both on a microscopic and a macroscopic
level in homogeneous fows. Matsuhashiet. al. (2005)
assessed the traffc situation in Hochiminh city in
Vietnam, using image processing technique and traffc
simulation model (VISSIM). It was found that the high
number of motorcycles in the network interfere with
other vehicles which reduces average speed of traffc
stream drastically. Further, the simulation model
was applied for deriving the benefts of increasing
the share of public transport. Chandra, S. (2004)
developed a method for estimating the capacity for a
two lane road under mixed traffc conditions. Zhang
et al. (2008) conducted a study using VISSIM to
* Project Associate, BITS-Pilani
** Project Associate, IIT-Madras
*** Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, BITS, Pilani, E-mail: raki.bits@gmail.com
TECHNICAL PAPERS
evaluate a proposed feedback- based tolling algorithm
to dynamically optimize High Occupancy Toll
(HOT) lane operations and performance. Hossain
(2004) calibrated the heterogeneous traffc model in
VISSIM to match saturation fows measured by video
at an intersection in the city of Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Velmurugan et al., (2010) studied free speed profles
and plotted speedfow equations for different vehicle
types for varying types of multi-lane highways based
on traditional and microscopic simulation model
VISSIM and subsequently estimated roadway capacity
for four-lane, six-lane and eight-lane roads under
heterogeneous traffc conditions with reasonable
degree of authenticity.
Many researchers tried to build their own simulation
software for studying heterogeneous traffc fow.
Arasan and Koshy (2005) developed a heterogeneous-
traffc-fow simulation model to study the various
characteristics of the traffc fow at micro level under
mixed traffc condition on urban roads. The vehicles
are represented, with dimensions, as rectangular blocks
occupying a specifed area of road space. The positions
of vehicles are represented using coordinates with
reference to an origin. For the purpose of simulation,
the length of road stretch as well as the road width
can be varied as per user specifcation. The model
was implemented in C++programming language with
modular software design. The model is also capable of
showing the animation of simulated traffc movements
over the road stretch. Dey et al. (2008) developed a
simulation program coded in Visual Basic language.
Arkatkar S (2012) analysed heterogeneous Traffc
Flow Using Microscopic Simulation Technique. Bains
Ponnu and Arkatkar S (2012) developed a model in
VISSIM for simulating the Mumbai-Pune Expressway
traffc and estimating the capacity values. The authors
performed number of simulation runs to determine
the capacity of a two-lane road and to study the effect
of traffc mix, slow moving vehicles and directional
distribution of traffc on capacity and speed.
3 THE SIMULATION MODEL
Simulation technique is one of the well-known
techniques to study traffc fow and its characteristics.
Simulation gives us the advantage of being able to study
how the created model behaves dynamically over time
or after a certain span of time. Traffc characteristics
on roads as a system vary with time and with a
considerable amount of randomness and simultaneous
interactions. The most diffcult and critical process in
simulating any traffc fow scenario or for that matter
any physical phenomena is to calibrate the simulated
model to capture or replicate the ground reality with
the desired accuracy. Given this, the results obtained
through a validated simulation model would be more
accurate than those obtained through analytical
results.
The simulation model followed in the present study
is shown in the form of a fow chart in Fig.1. Data in
the form of videos collected from the study site was
analyzed and this information is used for building the
simulation model in the software VISSIM 5.40. Then
the model was calibrated and validated for rendering
it suitable for replicating the conditions at site. Using
this validated simulation model, roadway capacity
estimation was done.
Fig. 1 The Simulation Model
TECHNICAL PAPERS
4 MODEL CALIBRATION AND VALIDATION
Model calibration is an iterative process of comparing
the model to reality, making adjustments (or even major
changes) to the model, comparing the revised model
to real conditions, making additional adjustments,
comparing again, and so on. The comparison of the
model to reality is carried out by tests that require
data on the systems behavior plus the corresponding
data produced by the model. The input data required
for the above mentioned heterogeneous traffc-fow
model are related to four aspects viz. road geometrics,
traffc characteristics, driver reaction time and vehicle
performance. The power of simulation as a tool for
the study of traffc fow lies in ability of the model
to include the effect of the random nature of traffc.
Hence, the random variables associated with traffc
fow such as headway distribution are expressed as
frequency distributions and input into the simulation
model. These data, pertaining to one direction of
traffc fow, was collected at a selected stretch of
an expressway for model calibration and validation
purposes.
5 STUDY STRETCH & DATA COLLECTION
The Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway is an 8-lane divided
facility that connects the city of Delhi with one
of its busiest suburbs, Gurgaon. The traffc on the
expressway was video graphed from a vantage point,
during both peak and non-peak hours on 20
th
March,
2012. It was also ensured that the study location was
free from any traffc interferences such as bus-stops
or intersections.
Free-fow speeds were ascertained by observing 100
vehicles each in different categories of vehicles during
non-peak hours when a fow of 1000 vph prevailed.
Then on the same day, the traffc fow on the road was
observed for two hours in the evening peak period from
16:24 to 18:24 hours. Macroscopic parameters such as
fow and speed aggregated at every 5-min intervals
were extracted from the videos were extracted at
a rate of 25 frames per second for achieving a high
accuracy. The traffc fows observed were 7200 vph
and 8573 vph in the frst and second hours respectively.
Composition of the traffc stream is given in Column
(2) of Table 1. The speeds of the different categories
of vehicles were measured by noting the time taken by
the vehicles to traverse a trap length of 30 m. The free
speeds of the different categories of vehicles were also
measured for the traffc under free-fow conditions.
The observed maximum, minimum and mean speeds
of various classes of vehicles and the corresponding
standard deviations are shown in columns (3), (4) and
(5) respectively of Table 1.
The overall dimensions of all categories of vehicles
are shown in columns (7) and (8) of Table 1. Any
vehicle moving in a traffc stream has to maintain
suffcient lateral clearance on the left and right sides
with respect to other vehicles/curb/median to avoid
side friction. These lateral clearances depend upon
the speed of the vehicle being considered, speed of
the adjacent vehicle in the transverse direction, and
their respective vehicle categories. The minimum and
maximum values of lateral-clearance share are given
in columns (9) and (10) of Table 1 respectively. The
minimum and the maximum clearance-share values
correspond to zero speed and free speed conditions
of respective vehicles respectively. The acceleration
values of the different categories of vehicles over
different speed ranges used for simulation are shown
in Table 2.
6 SIMULATION MODEL DEVELOPMENT
A model which accurately represents the design
and operational attributes of the study stretch in the
simulation software is known as the base model.
The design attributes can be road confguration
(carriageways, medians & shoulders), horizontal
curvature and vertical gradient. Operational attributes
can be the vehicle or driver characteristics and the
traffc fow data. When this base model is calibrated
and validated to replicate the actual or ground
conditions, the model can be used to study different
characteristics that were not defned by the user as
an input. For example, the width of the road can be
defned and in turn the capacity of this road could be
TECHNICAL PAPERS
measured. The validated base model can also be used
to develop a simulated scenario which is desired to
be known. The base model development involves the
following steps:
a) Development of Base Link/Network.
b) Defning Model Parameters.
c) Calibrating the Network.
d) Validating the Model
7.1 Development of Base Link/Network
Development of a link/network that accurately
depicts the physical attributes of a test site is an
important stage in the modeling process. The basic
key network building components in VISSIM are
links and connectors. In the present simulation model,
a unidirectional four lane test section link spanning
1000 m was created representing the study stretch
located on the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway as explained
above.
7.2 Defning Model Parameters
7.2.1 Vehicle Model
Vehicle model deals with defning the dimensions of
each vehicle type that are plying on the test stretch
and are hence considered for the simulation. It is also
used to defne the acceleration values of vehicles.
The dimensions namely the width and the length are
considered for the present simulation model as per the
description given in Table 1. The acceleration values
are given as per Table 2.
Table 1 Input Data for Heterogeneous Traffc Flow Simulation
Vehicle Type Composition
(%)
Observed Speeds, km/h Vehicle Dimension, m Lat. clear. share, m
Max.
Speed
Min.
Speed
Mean
Speed
Std.
Deviation
Length Width Min. Max.
Car 70.80 103 78 90 4.00 4.4 1.75 0.40 0.60
Two-wheeler 22.50 87 33 58 8.33 1.8 0.60 0.10 0.30
Three-wheeler 3.30 63 38 50 4.00 2.6 1.4 0.30 0.40
Bus 2.20 93 64 79 5.00 10.3 2.5 0.40 0.60
LCV 0.70 80 63 73 3.33 5.0 1.9 0.40 0.60
Truck 0.50 69 48 60 4.00 7.5 2.5 0.40 0.60
Note : LCVs Light Commercial Vehicles
Table 2 Acceleration Values for Different Vehicle
Categories
Vehicle Type 0-30 km/hr.
(m/s
2
)
30-60 km/
hr.
(m/s
2
)
Above 60
km/hr.
(m/s
2
)
Car 2.15 1.80 1.10
Two-wheeler 1.10 0.70 0.45
Three-wheeler 0.80 0.30 0.25
Bus 1.40 1.00 0.45
LCV 1.30 0.80 0.55
Truck 1.00 0.62 0.46
7.2.2 Desired Speed Distribution
The desired speed distribution for each vehicle
category was given as input for the simulation model
in VISSIM. The maximum & minimum values of the
speeds and distribution between these values were
defned in the model. The desired speed profle for the
vehicle type car is given as an example is shown in
Fig.2. The desired distribution curve for any vehicle
category is generally an S shaped curve as shown in
the fgure. Adequate care was taken to ensure that the
speed distribution defned in VISSIM represented the
values observed in the feld.
7.2.3 Vehicle Composition and Vehicle Flow
Vehicle composition and vehicle fow based on feld
observations is given as an input to simulation model
for the given time interval.
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and lateral distance. These inputs were given in
the simulation model as shown in Fig.3a and 3b
respectively. Thepsycho physical driver behavior
based Wiedermann 99 Car-following model has been
used for simulating the vehicle following behavior.
The parameters of the Indian driving behavior model
is shown in Fig.3a. The cars following parameters
considered in simulation are shown in Fig. 3b.
7.3 Calibration of the Simulation Model
Calibration is a process of adjusting the model to
replicate observed data and observed site conditions to
a suffcient level to satisfy the model objectives. This
process involves adjusting the following characteristics:
desired speed distribution, acceleration/deceleration
of vehicle, mechanical characteristics of the vehicle,
minimum safety distance, minimum lateral distance
and driving behavior characteristics.
By giving these parameters as an input to simulation
model, simulation runs have to be carried out in order
to estimate the output. In the present simulation model,
Fig. 2 Desired Speed Distribution of Small Car
Considered in VISSIM
Fig. 3a Indian Driving Behaviour Modelled
7.2.4 Driving Behavior Characteristics
The driving behavior characteristics mainly include
these two features viz. car following behaviour
TECHNICAL PAPERS
the outputs were the traffc volumes and average
speeds of the vehicles for 10 different random seed
values. All the simulations were run for a total time
of 7400 seconds including a temporal warm-up period
of 200 seconds to ensure accurate simulation results.
Flow for each 1 hour from the two hour feld data was
fed which improved the degree of match between the
empirical and the simulated.
As explained above, a different driving behavior
was considered for each vehicle type to account
for heterogeneity in the traffc. There was no strict
lane discipline among the vehicles was as observed
from the video. Hence, an entire road width based
simulation where there was a one lane model having
an effective with of three lanes was considered in the
simulation. Thus each vehicle was free to choose any
lateral position and overtake from any side during the
simulation on this three lane width without any lane
discipline similar to site conditions.
The minimum look ahead distance which defnes the
distance a vehicle can see forward in order to react to
vehicles in front or to the side of it was set to a value
of 40 m was found to be appropriate for the present
situation. Similar calibration was done for minimum
look back distance. Time headway plays a major role
for capacity estimation in VISSIM and hence these
values were chosen carefully for each vehicle type
according to the observed traffc fow as shown in the
Figs.3a and 3b. The other values were chosen as per
the defaults considered in VISSIM which produced
the observed conditions with required accuracy.
The estimated values and the observed values were
compared and the error was computed. If the error
was within the limits, the calibration process was
stopped or otherwise the parameters were modifed
and simulation runs were carried out. This process
was repeated and the simulation runs were made
till the error was within the satisfactory limits. The
calibration process in the form of a fow chart is shown
in Fig.4.
Fig. 3b Small Car Following Parameters Considered in Simulation
TECHNICAL PAPERS
7.4 Validation of the Simulation Model
Validation is the process of checking the results
obtained from the calibrated model in terms of
simulated values against feld measurements for
parameters such as traffc volumes and average
speeds. The observed traffc volume and composition
was given as input to the simulation process. The
simulation runs were made with 10 random number
seeds for a total run time of 7400 seconds including
temporal warm-up period of 200 seconds to ensure
accurate simulation results. A sample simulation run
is shown in Fig.5. The average speeds of vehicles
from a single run was noted and then the average
speed for each vehicle category from all the ten runs
were taken as the fnal output from the model. The
inter-arrival time gaps of the heterogeneous traffc
fow (similar to headway of homogeneous traffc) of
vehicles was assumed to follow negative exponential
distribution (Arasan and Koshy, 2003) and the free
speeds of different categories of vehicles, based on
the results of an earlier study (Velmurugan et al.
2010), was assumed to follow normal distribution.
These distributions formed the basis for input of the
two parameters for the purpose of simulation. To
check for the validity of the model, the vehicle speeds
simulated by the model were compared with the feld
observed speed values for each vehicle category. The
comparison of the observed and simulated speeds, for
an observed traffc volume, is shown in Fig.6.
Fig. 5 A Snapshot of Simulation Runs in VISSIM
Fig. 6 Comparison of Observed and Simulated Stream
Speeds for Every 5-min
It can be seen that the simulated speed values,
simulated fow values are quite closer to the speeds
and fows observed from the feld for all the vehicle
categories and for most of the, if not all 24 fve minute
intervals (Figs. 6 & 7) and eight 15 minute intervals
(Figs. 8 and 9). A paired t-test results obtained
for different input fow intervals are listed in the
Table 3. The critical value of p statistic for a level of
Fig. 4 Calibration of the Simulation Model
1. Desired speed distribution
2. Desired accel-eration & deceleration. of vehicle
3. Weight of thevehicle
4. MinimumSafety Distance
5. Min. and max. lateral gaps
6. Traffc volume and composition
7. Vehicledimensions (length and width)
8. Roadway geometry
9. Total simulation time
Defne Simulation
Parameters
Simulation Run in VISSIM
Estimation of Output
Speed
Comparison with
observed data
If Error <
Defned
Accuracy
Speed
Stop
NO
YES
TECHNICAL PAPERS
signifcance of 0.05 for 4 degrees of freedom is 0.05.
This implies that there is no signifcant difference
between the observed and simulated speeds.
7.4.1 Model Application
The VISSIM model can be applied to study various
traffc scenarios for varying roadway and traffc
conditions. In this study, the application of the model
is to study the relationship between traffc volume and
speed on Indian Expressways with seven categories of
vehicles as shown in Fig. 6.
7.4.2 Speed-Flow Relationships and Capacity
One of the basic studies in traffc fow research is to
examine the relationship between speed and volume
of traffc. The capacity of the facility under different
roadway and traffc conditions can be estimated
using these relationships. In this study, speed-fow
relationship was developed using the validated
simulation model for a heterogeneous fow with
vehicle composition and roadway conditions same as
that observed in the feld. The average speed of the
stream was plotted for different simulated volumes,
starting from 500 vph to the capacity of the road.
The following procedure was adopted for fnding the
capacity of the facility when developing the above
speed-fow relationships. During successive simulation
runs with increments in traffc volume from near-zero
volume level, there will be a commensurate increase in
the exit volume at the end of simulation stretch. After
a specifc number of runs, the increments in the input
traffc volumes will not result in the same increase
in the exit volume. Such a decrease in exit volume
(in spite of increase in the input) in successive runs
indicates that the facility has reached its capacity. The
speed-volume relationships for a four lane expressway
are shown in the Figs.10 and 11. It is clear from
the fgures that the curves follow the established
trend and the capacity in terms of vehicles per hour
decreases as we proceed from car, light commercial
vehicle and trucks in that order, which is quite intuitive.
The values of capacity obtained from the simulation
for the observed fow and simulated one are given in
Table 4.
Fig. 7 Comparison of Observed and Simulated Flows for
Every 5-min
Every 15-min
Every 15-min
Table 3 Degree of Match of the Simulated and
Observed Speed/Flow (p-Values Obtained from the
Students T-test)
Property Flow
Interval
p-Value Critical
p-Value
Speed 5-min 0.22746 0.05
Speed 15-min 0.35308 0.05
Speed 30-min 0.38017 0.05
Speed 60-min 0.19236 0.05
Flow 5-min 0.35181 0.05
Flow 15-min 0.44942 0.05
Flow 30-min 0.61559 0.05
Flow 60-min 0.5054 0.05
TECHNICAL PAPERS
Table 4 Estimated Roadway Capacity of Eight Lane
(Bidirectional)/Four Lane
(Unidirectional) Expressways
Flow Type Traffc
Composition
Estimated Capacity,
veh/hr/dir
Observed Heterogeneous
(Table 1)
10800
Simulated (1-min) Heterogeneous
(Table 1)
10560
Simulated (5-min) Heterogeneous
(Table 1)
9606
7 CONCLUSIONS
It has been found from this study that the micro-
simulation model VISSIM is suitable for simulating
and hence studying heterogeneous traffc fow
in expressways with statistical signifcance. The
simulated fow and speed from the calibrated model
best fts with the observed data when the input fow
is given for every 15 minutes and output collected
for every 30 minutes, whereas the capacity value
estimated from the model is closer to the observed
value when the output for every 1 minute is collected.
This is quite intuitive as lower speeds and lower fows
would be observed at more frequencies when the
level of time aggregation is decreased. Hence when
the interval considered is smaller, lower and higher
mean speeds as well as lower and higher fow levels
are recorded resulting in a more fully-developed
fow-speed curve. The capacity estimated for the
Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway from this study is 10560
vehicles/hour in one direction of travel considering the
observed vehicle class mix during the study period.
These results are local and are pertaining only to the
expressway that has been studied and more studies
are envisaged to extend the results for expressways
in general.
8 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
The driver behavior, considered in this study can be
refned further to consider many more physiological
and psychological factors.
9 FUTURE RESEARCH SCOPE
This study can be further extended to study the
following aspects:
1. Developing a concept of stochastic capacity
estimates under heterogeneous traffc
conditions prevailing on expressways in India.
Such estimates would account for vehicle
composition in the traffc stream.
2. Studying lane utilization and lane discipline in
Indian Expressways to determine the degree
of heterogeneity in these facilities with clear
Fig. 10 Simulated 1-Minute Traffc Flow
Fig. 11 Simulated 5-Minute Traffc Flow
TECHNICAL PAPERS
demarcation between vehicles following a lane
discipline and those who do not.
3. Area-Occupancy can be used as a parameter of
surrogate measure for the density
4. The effect of vehicle composition on PCU
values can be determined from the calibrated
model.
10 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to thank Central Road Research
Institute (CRRI), New Delhi India for providing the
traffc data used in this study. They would also like to
thank PTV AG, Germany for providing the software
VISSIM used in this study.
REFERENCES
1. Fellendorf, M., and Vortisch, P. (2001).Validation of the
Microscopic Traffc Flow Model VISSIM in Different
Real-World Situations. Proceedings of 80
th
Annual Meeting
of the Transportation Research Board, Washington D.C.
2. Matsuhashi, N., Hyodo, T., Takahashi, Y. (2005). Image
Processing Analysis on Motorcycle Oriented Mixed Traffc
Flow in Vietnam. Proceedings of Eastern Asia society for
transportation studies (EAST), Tokyo, 929944.
3. Zhang, G., Wang, Y., Wei, H., Yi, P., (2008). A Feedback
Based Dynamic Tolling Algorithm for High-occupancy
Toll Lane Operations. Transportation Research Record,
2065, 54-63.
4. Hossain, M.J . (2004).Calibration of the Microscopic
Traffc Flow Simulation Model VISSIM for Urban
Conditions in Dhaka city. Master thesis, University of
Karlsruhe, Germany.
5. Velmurugan, S., Errampalli, M., Ravinder, K., Sitaram
Anjaneyulu, K., and Gangopadhyay, S. (2010). Critical
Evaluation of Roadway Capacity of Multi-lane High
Speed Corridors under Heterogeneous Traffc Conditions
through Traditional and Microscopic Simulation Models.
J ournal of Indian Roads Congress, 235-264.
6. Arasan, V.T., and Koshy, R.Z. (2005). Methodology for
Modeling Highly Heterogeneous Traffc Flow. Journal of
Transportation Engineering, 131, 544 551.
7. Arasan, V. T., and Koshy, R. Z. (2003). Headway
Distribution of Heterogeneous Traffc on Urban Arterials.
J ournal of Institution of Engineers (India), 84, 210215.
8. Dey, P.P., S. Chandra and S. Gangopadhyay (2008).
Simulation of Mixed Traffc Flow on Two-lane Roads.
J ournal of Transportation Engineering, ASCE, 134,
361-369.
9. Manraj Singh Bains, Balaji Ponnu, Shriniwas S Arkatkar
(2012). Modeling of Traffc Flow on Indian Expressways
using Simulation Technique. Procedia - Social and
Behavioral Sciences 43 ( 2012 ) 475 493.
10 Chandra, S. (2004). Capacity Estimation Procedure for
Two Lane Roads under Mixed Traffc Conditions. Journal
of Indian Road Congress, 165, 139-170.
11. Capacity Manual, National Research Council,
Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C.
12. Shriniwas S. Arkatkar Analysis of Heterogeneous Traffc
Flow Using Microscopic Simulation Technique National
Symposium on Innovations and Advances in Civil
Engineering, March 16-17, 2012, GGCT, J abalpur, India,
29-40.
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Fax: +91 11 2619 6391
ABSTRACT
Traffc in India is highly heterogeneous, comprising different
types of vehicles with widely varying static and dynamic
characteristics. Due to these variations in traffc composition, the
Passenger Car Unit (PCU) is normally used as a standard unit of
measurement of traffc volume. The guidelines provided by Indian
Roads Congress (IRC) in respect of PCU of different categories of
vehicles are more or less based on the static characteristics of the
vehicles whereas the dynamic characteristics have been not taken
into account during the formulation.
The heterogeneous traffc in India comprised of not only fast
moving motorized vehicles but also slow moving vehicles like
cycle and cycle rickshaws. The speed of these vehicles vary from
8 to 55 km/h. Due to the widely varying physical dimensions
and speeds, each vehicle type is unique in itself and cannot be
compared, using direct values, with other vehicle type due to the
fact that it demonstrates different effects on behavior of traffc
fow stream, on varying composition within the traffc fow.
A number of studies have been carried out abroad suggesting
that the behavior of traffc stream were highly infuenced by
the presence of heavy vehicles and slow-moving vehicles in the
fow. Various studies have been conducted abroad and in India
suggesting how the traffc fows get affected with the change in
percentage of these type of vehicles in traffc volume, but very
few studies were carried out stating the effect of these vehicles
on other type of vehicle. The lessons learnt from various studies
are that each type of vehicle has an effect on the performance of
other types vehicles depending upon its own static & dynamic
characteristics. In this study, an attempt has been made to build
a number of relationships to appreciate the characteristics of
different types of vehicles in regard to their performance and
their effect on the varying composition of the traffc stream.
These include the studies of the effects of the share of NMT and
Heavy vehicles on PCU values of Bus and bicycle, variation of
PCU values of different modes of transport as against the speed of
traffc stream. The above studies forms the basis for formulation
of dynamic PCU values under varying traffc fow composition
and speed. Further attempt has been made to work out the capacity
DETERMINATION OF DYNAMIC PCUs OF DIFFERENT TYPES
OF PASSENGER VEHICLES ON URBAN ROADS: A CASE STUDY,
DELHI URBAN AREA
PROBHAT KR. PAUL* AND P.K SARKAR**
of arterial road for varying road width by considering values of
dynamic PCU values.
1 BACKGROUND
Traffc in India is highly heterogeneous, comprising
different types of vehicles with widely varying static
and dynamic characteristics. The heterogeneous traffc
in India comprised not only of fast moving motorized
vehicles but also of slow moving vehicles like bicycles
and cycle rickshaws. The speeds of these vehicles
vary from 8 to 55 km/h. Due to the widely varying
physical dimensions and speeds, every vehicle type is
unique in itself and cannot be compared, using direct
values, with other vehicle types due to the fact that
it has different effects on behavior of traffc fow, on
different composition within the traffc fow.
Passenger Car Unit (PCU) is used to express the
capacity of roads. The values of PCUs of any other
modes except car is worked out by considering car
as one unit in the prevailing traffc fow condition.
It is therefore, a measure of the performance of any
mode in the traffc stream with respect to Car which
is defned as one unit. The guidelines provided by
Indian Roads Congress (IRC) in respect of PCUs of
different categories of vehicles are more or less based
on the static characteristics, like size of the vehicles.
Whereas the dynamic characteristics like speed of the
vehicle, lateral clearance between two consecutive
vehicles and its composition within the traffc stream,
are among the few major factors which are not taken
into consideration during the formulation of passenger
car unit.
* Ex. Student, School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi
** Professor, Department of Transport Planing, School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi
TECHNICAL PAPERS
A number of studies have been conducted abroad
suggesting that the behavior of traffc stream is highly
infuenced by the presence of heavy vehicles and
slow-moving vehicles in the fow. Various studies
have been carried out abroad and in India (CRRI,
1982) suggesting how the traffc fows get affected
with the increase in percentage of these types of
vehicles in traffc volume, but very few were carried
out stating the effect of these vehicles on other types
of vehicles. It is clear from various studies that the
effect of performance of each vehicle type on other
vehicle types depends upon its own static & dynamic
characteristics.
2 REVIEW OF THE EARLIER STUDIES
In the past, various methods have been adopted for
estimation of PCU values of vehicles. The basis
used for estimation process is (i) Arterial road (e.g.
Sumner, et.al. 1980), (ii) speed (e.g. Aerde Van and
Yagar, 1984; and Elefteriadou et.al. 1997), (iii) density
(e.g. Huber, 1982; Webster and Elefteriadou, 1999),
(iv) freeway capacity (e.g. Linzer,), and (v) queue
discharge (e.g. Al-Kaisy et.al. 2005). All these studies,
however, are mainly related to estimation of Passenger
Car Equivalents (PCE) for heavy vehicles (Trucks
or Buses) under homogeneous traffc conditions and
hence, the results of these studies are not applicable
for Indian conditions. J usto and Tuladhar (1984)
concluded that the PCU value of each vehicle category
is not a constant, but varies with several factors such
as traffc composition, Volume-to-Capacity ratio and
other factors associated with the roadway, traffc and
environment.
Chandra and Sikdar (2000) observed that PCU for a
vehicle type is mainly controlled by homogeneity/
heterogeneity of the traffc stream, which in turn,
depend upon the relative proportion of different types
of vehicle. PCU for large size vehicle i.e. bus/truck
increases and for small size vehicles like 3-wheeler
and 2-wheeler decreases with increase in their own
proportions in the traffc stream. The basic philosophy
involved in the development of concept of dynamic
PCU is that capacity estimation in a common unit must
be same irrespective of stream composition under
given physical and control conditions. The researchers
developed a computer program to evaluate PCU for a
vehicle type on urban roads.
Chandra (2000) calculated the PCU values for two-
lane undivided roads using two variables (i) speed
ratio of the car to the subject vehicle (for which PCU
value is to be calculated) and (ii) space occupancy
ratio of the car to the subject vehicle. However, these
values are empirical and are based on limited traffc
data.
Malliarjuna and Rao (2006) used area occupancy in
place of density, as equivalency criteria to estimate
the PCU values for buses, trucks and motorized two-
wheelers using a simulation model. The estimated
PCU values, for all the considered vehicle categories
are found to decrease with increase in their respective
proportions.
Recently, a study on Dynamic PCU Value for Urban
Roads is carried out by Bais (2007) in the School of
Planning and Architecture which provides the variation
of PCUs of different types of vehicles as against
the change in traffc volume along with the change
in composition of vehicle for which PCU values for
various modes are determined while the present work
examines the derivation of dynamic PCU of different
modes of transport with respect to variation of NMT,
HMV along with the change in traffc stream speed
Table 1 presents the variation of Dynamic PCU values
under varying traffc magnitude and composition of
the traffc fows
TECHNICAL PAPERS
Table 1 Variation of PCUs Under Varying Traffc Flow and Composition of the Vehicle
Composition Vehicles 1000 2000 5000
Bicycle 2-W 3-W Bus Bicycle 2-W 3-W Bus Bicycle 2-W 3-W Bus
1 0.63 3.05 0.6 3.05 0.51 3.28
5 0.67 0.85 2.84 0.64 0.82 2.9 0.54 0.72 3.07
10 0.7 0.62 0.85 2.58 0.68 0.58 0.82 2.63 0.58 0.46 0.73 2.81
15 0.62 0.86 2.31 0.58 0.84 2.57 0.46 0.73
20 0.61 0.87 0.57 0.84 0.45 0.74
25 0.61 0.88 0.57 0.85 0.45 0.75
30 0.58 0.89 0.56 0.86 0.44 0.76
50 0.55 0.54 0.42
80 0.58 0.51 0.39
3 CONCEPT
As per IRC:106-1990, urban roads are characterized
by mixed traffc conditions, with varying degree of
interaction between various kinds of vehicles. This
has led to the understanding of road capacity with its
maximum number of vehicles passing through a road
section in unit time. It is usual to express the capacity
of urban roads in term of a common unit. The unit
generally employed is the Passenger Car Unit (PCU)
and each vehicle type is converted into equivalent
PCU based on its relative size, weight, speed and
infuential catchment area in the traffc stream.
According to HCM 1965, PCE was defned as
number of passenger cars displaced in the traffc
fow by a truck or a bus, under the prevailing roadway
and traffc conditions. Most of the studies used the
following formula to work out the PCU value for a
particular mode.
PCU of a particular vehicle=(Ai x Vc) / (Vi x Ac)....
..........................Equation No.1
Where Vc and Vi are speeds of car and particular
vehicle i respectively and Ac and Ai are their infuence
area.
4 METHODS OF DETERMINING P.C.U.
VALUE
A common method used in the USA is the density
method. However, the PCU values derived from the
density method are based on underlying homogeneous
traffc concepts such as strict lane discipline, car
following etc. On the other hand, highways in India
carry heterogeneous traffc, where road space is
shared among many modes of transport with different
physical dimensions in which loose lane discipline
prevails coupled with non-adherence to car following
norm to a great extent. This complicates the computing
of PCE or PCU values for different types of vehicles.
The different methods for determining the PCU Value
are presented as under:
Homogenization coeffcient
Semi-empirical method
Walkers method
Headway method
Multiple linear regression method
Simulation method
Factors on which the PCU values of different vehicle
classes depend upon can be stated as under:
Dimensions, power, speed, acceleration and
braking characteristics of the vehicle.
Road characteristics such as geometrics
including gradients, curves, access controls,
type of road: rural or urban, presence and the
type of intersections etc.
TECHNICAL PAPERS
Transverse and longitudinal clearances between
vehicles moving on road, which in turn depends
upon the speeds, driver characteristics and the
classes of other moving vehicles.
Traffc stream composition of different classes
of vehicles.
These factors are not constant and change dynamically
under different conditions. Therefore, there is a need to
develop a modifed approach considering the various
traffc interaction and fow characteristic as application
of single set of PCU values poses problems resulting
in inaccuracy for determination of magnitude of traffc
fow.
5 A CASE STUDY & ITS TRAFFIC
CHARACTERISTICS
Urban arterial roads of Delhi city are considered as
the case study in this research shown in the Fig. 1. The
roads which are taken into consideration for this study
are as under:
Vasant Kunj Marg
Willingdon Crescent Marg
Vandemataram Marg
Shahjahan Road
Fig. 1 Arterial Roads Selected for the Study
Traffc fow on the major roads of Delhi continues to
increase over a period of time. The construction of
fyovers at various locations has only slowed down
the process of congestion and delay. The adverse
conditions have shifted from the intersections to other
locations or next adjoining at-grade intersections. The
road capacity has been reduced by encroachments and
parking. A study was conducted on the city network
TECHNICAL PAPERS
in 2002 by C.R.R.I. to assess urban road traffc
conditions, which showed that roads are carrying more
than 100,000 vehicles in the inner and middle areas of
Delhi. The magnitude of traffc fow is most critical
on bridges across Yamuna I.T.O. Bridge carrying
the maximum traffc followed by Nizamuddin Bridge.
The traffc is constantly increasing at a rate of more
than 2.5% per annum and heavy intensity of traffc
continues to add to the problems causing degradation
of environment of the city. In fact traffc is the largest
contributor to pollution levels in Delhi.
Vehicular compositions on the selected stretch of
arterial roads as mentioned above are shown below:-
Fig. 2 Vasant Kunj
Fig. 3 Willingdon Crescent Marg
Fig. 4 Vandematarm Marg
Fig. 5 Shahjahan Road
Table 2 Dynamic PCUs for Different Categories of Vehicles
Vehicle Type Average Speed (km/h)
for Vasant Kunj road
Average Speed (km/h) for
Vandemataram Road
Shahjahan Road
2-wheeler 40 39 40 37
3-wheeler 33 34 33 32
Bus 23 22 23 22
Car 39 38 39 36
Cycle 12 12 12 11
Truck 29 29 30 28
Stream 36.5 35.6 36.2 33.5
Average Speed of various vehicle types on the
selected stretch of arterial roads as mentioned above
are presented in the Table 2
TECHNICAL PAPERS
6 SELECTION OF MODEL AND FACTORS
The passenger car unit may be considered as a measure
of relative space requirement of a vehicle class
compared to that of a passenger car under a specifed
set of vehicle characteristic, stream characteristics,
and roadway characteristic.
6.1 Factors Considered in the Model Building
To determine the variation in PCU values for a vehicle
type, the following factors are considered:
Infuence area of each vehicle.
Traffc Composition
Speed of each category of vehicle
Headway
Lateral clearance
6.2 Selection of Equation
The reason behind selecting the specifc equation is
its widely used in the determination of PCU values
for various modes of transport.
The passenger car equivalency of a vehicle type
is inversely proportional to the ratio of speed and
directly proportional to the space requirement of a
vehicle with respect to car
PCU = (Ai x Vc) / (Vi x Ac)..............................
Equation No.1
Where Vc and Vi are speeds of car and vehicle i
respectively and Ac and Ai are their infuence area.
6.3 Data Collection
The data is collected by Videography recording on
real time basis. A trap is made on the road section of
30 m and the traffc is observed for a fxed interval.
The following data is collected:
Classifed Volume count
Speed
Headway
Lateral Clearance
The survey is conducted for the duration of 3 hours on a
single road during peak hour period. The data analysis
is carried out by running the recorded tapes several
times to measure the data with 90% of accuracy.
6.4 Conceptual Model
In order to appreciate the functioning of the model,
an attempt has been made to develop to a conceptual
model to start with as shown in the Fig. 6.
Fig. 6 A Conceptual Model for Determining Dynamic PCU
For analyzing the headway and lateral clearance data
has been measured from recorded data.
The above diagram shows how the PCU value for any
type of vehicles can be worked out. It can be seen
from the Fig.6 that the infuence area has been the
determinant factor to work out the PCU of any type
of vehicles. The determination of PCU as given in
the Equation No. 1 has been taken into account in the
calculation of PCU which is the ratio of speed of any
type of vehicle to the proportional space requirement
of the vehicle with respect to car. Therefore, PCU for
any type of modes has been worked out under different
traffc conditions by considering traffc composition
and respective vehicular speeds.
7 ANALYSIS OF DYNAMIC PCUs
The PCU values are developed according to the
infuence area of each vehicle, and speed in the section
from the collected data with the help of regression
equation and developing relationship between
infuence area and volume, speed and composition.
The PCU values developed are dynamic and according
to the change of traffc stream taken from the collected
data with respect to speed, vehicular mix, volume,
headway and lateral clearance. PCUs for various types
TECHNICAL PAPERS
of vehicles are calculated based on the Equation No.1.
Table 3 presents the dynamic PCU values for different
categories of vehicles for the urban roads selected for
the study.
Table 3 Dynamic PCUs for Different Categories of Vehicles
Location PCU of
2-Wheeler
PCU of
3-Wheeler
PCU of Bus PCU of Cycle PCU of
Truck
Max Min Max Min Max Min Max Min Max Min
Mehrauli to Mahipalpur 0.53 0.40 1.31 1.12 3.82 3.43 0.61 0.42 2.69 2.06
Mahipalpur to Mehrauli 0.40 0.30 1.44 1.09 4.26 3.75 0.54 0.45 2.54 2.22
Vasant kunj Road
Karol Bagh to Dhola Kuan 0.45 0.36 1.40 1.11 4.16 3.50 0.59 0.40 2.48 2.05
Dhola Kuan to Karol Bagh 0.48 0.33 1.31 1.05 3.88 3.45 0.56 0.38 2.28 2.04
Vandemataram Marg
11 Murti to RML hospital 0.43 0.30 1.18 1.07 4.42 3.32 0.48 0.40 2.52 2.03
RML hospital to 11 Murti 0.50 0.31 1.37 1.08 4.07 3.60 0.66 0.44 2.56 2.19
India Gate to Safdarjang 0.53 0.35 1.30 1.12 4.26 3.67 0.56 0.43 2.43 2.22
Safdarjang to India Gate 0.35 0.30 1.23 1.11 4.22 3.46 0.50 0.40 2.60 2.24
Shahjahan Road
Unit: PCU
After calculating the PCU values for different roads
at different time intervals, a number of relationships
are developed to determine the PCU of different types
vehicle categories depending on varying percentage
of NMT & HMV in traffc composition, and following
results are obtained as shown in the Figs.7-9,
along with its statistics. It can be seen from the statistics
that most of the relationships developed offer high R
2

values and are statistically sound with respect to t
values with signifcance at 5% and 1% level. Even we
look at the correlations tables, the dependence between
the independent variables are not signifcant.
Effect of HMV & NMT on PCU of Bus
Equation : Y =3.37 0.3156a +0.185b
r
2
=0.79
Fig. 7 Effect of share of Non-Motorized Transport (NMT) & Heavy Motor Vehicle (HMV) on Passenger Car Unit (PCU) value of Bus
Where; Y =PCU of Bus
a =% of HMV
b =% of NMT
TECHNICAL PAPERS
Equation : Y =0.285 +0.097a 0.025b
r
2
=0.54
Effect of HMV & NMT on PCU of 2-wheeler motorized vehicle
Fig. 8 Effect of the Share of NMT & HMV on PCU Value of 2-Wheeler Motorized Vehicles
Where; Y =PCU of 2-wheeler
a =% of HMV
b =% of NMT
Equation : Y =0.877 0.091a 0.015b
r
2
=0.56
Where; Y =PCU of Cycle
a =% of HMV
b =% of NMT
Depending upon the above equations, the graphs show
the effect of different composition of NMT & HMV
in traffc composition on PCU values of different
vehicles. Fig.10 shows the variation of PCU values
of cycle, bus and 2-Wheeler motorized vehicles as
against the composition of NMT and HMV.
Effect of HMV & NMT on PCU of Cycle
Fig. 9 Effect of Share of NMT & HMV on PCU Value of Cycle
Fig. 10 PCU of different vehicdles on different
HMV & NMT%
TECHNICAL PAPERS
Another interesting analysis is carried out showing
the effect of speed on the PCU values of different
Effect of Streams Speed on PCU values of different vehicles
vehicles, resulting in development of the following
relationships:
For BUS
Equation: Y =- 0.0449x +5.4688
r
2
=0.4584
Where; Y =PCU of Bus
a =Speed
For 2-Wheeler
Equation: Y =0.0164x 0.2008
r
2
=0.7677
Where; Y =PCU of 2-Wheeler
x =Speed
For 3-Wheeler
Equation: Y =0.0106x +0.7756
r
2
=0.5127
Where; Y =PCU of 3-Wheeler
x =Speed
For Cycle
Equation: Y =0.0091x +0.1559
r
2
=0.4807
Where; Y =PCU of Cycle
x =Speed
Variation of PCU with respect to truck could not be
established from the existing set of data.
Fig.11 shows the variation of PCU values of various
modes of transport against the change in vehicular
stream speed.
TECHNICAL PAPERS
Fig. 11 Graph Showing the Variation of PCU Values at
Different Speed
Based on the above equations and the traffc
composition, the nomogram presented below is
developed showing the variation of PCU of different
vehicles at different speeds for an average composition
of composition of traffc.
PCUs for various types of vehicles are calculated
based on the equation indicated above.
The capacity which is worked out at the next stage
using the above method is given in Table 4:-
Fig. 12 Nomogram Showing Variation of PCU wrt Varried Streams Speed for an Average Vehicular Composition
Table 4 Capacity for Different Carriageway width
Actual Carriageway
width (m)
Capacity through
Dynamic PCU (PCU/hr)
6.87 2570
7.34 2818
7.37 2939
7.23 2774
7.40 3245
7.87 3237
7.70 3216
8.10 3302
8 A COMPARISON OF VALUES OF
DYNAMIC PCUs BETWEEN THE
PRESENT AND BAISS STUDY
Table 5 presents a comparative assessment of the
ranges of PCU values obtained from the two studies
as mentioned above.
Table 5 Comparison of PCU Values Between the Two
Studies
Present Study Baiss Study
Max Min Max Min
Two-Wheeler 0.53 .030 0.62 0.19
Three- Wheeler 1.44 1.05 0.89 0.60
Bus 4.42 3.32 3.57 2.31
Bicycle 0.56 0.38 0.63 0.36
TECHNICAL PAPERS
1. The values obtained from the studies closely match
with each other apart from the Three wheeler with
respect to maximum and minimum values. There is
also difference in the values of PCU of buses. The
variation of value of Three-wheeler is primarily
attributable to non-adherence to the traffc lane to a
great extent as well as for its more maneuverability
with little safety which poses complexity in the
calculation in the PCU.
9 LIMITATIONS
Some of the limitations of the said project are:-
1. Study was carried out on urban arterial roads.
2. For Heavy vehicles, only Buses were considered
and for slow-moving vehicles only Cycles were
considered.
3. The study was conducted for a fow ranging from
800 PCU/hr to 1800 PCU/hr.
10 CONCLUSIONS
The above study is conclusive with the following
observations.
1. The PCU of 2-wheeler increases with increase in
HMV% and decrease in NMT%.
2. The PCU of Bus decreases with the increase in HMV
% and decrease in NMT%.
3. No signifcant relationship was observed between
PCU of Auto-rickshaw and change in percentage of
HMV & NMT.
4. As the speed of the stream decreases, the PCU of
Bus increases. This shows that Busses experience
a more freedom of space with higher speed as
compared to other type of vehicles. The reason
behind the variation of PCU of Bus is due to the
speed of the bus which varies signifcantly from low
speed of old DTC buses to high speed of Volvo and
chartered buses
5. The PCU value of 2-wheeler decreases with decrease
of streams speed which is due to its vehicle
characteristics like speed and size.
6. The PCU value of cycle also decreases with decrease
in speed.
7. The PCU value of 3-wheeler also decreases with
decrease in speed.
8. More studies need to be conducted for different
traffc fow ranges so as to derive a generic relation
irrespective of the traffc fow.
REFRENCES
1. CRRI 1982, Road User Cost Study Final Report
New Delhi.
2. HCM 1965,1995 & 2000
3. Linzer TRB Circular 212 (1979)
4. Huber, M.J . 1982 Estimation of Passenger Car Equivalent
of truck in Traffc Stream
5. Cunagin, W.D. and Messer, C.J . Passenger Car Equivalent
for Rural Highways TRRL 905, 1983
6. Van Aerde, M., and Yagar, S. Capacity, Speed, and
Platooning Vehicle Equivalents for Two-Lane Rural
Highways. In Transportation Research Record 971.
TRB, National Research Council, Washington, DC., 1984,
pp. 58-67.
7. Huber, M. Estimation of Passenger Car Equivalents of
Trucks in Traffc Stream. In Transportation Research
Record 869. TRB, National Research Council, Washington,
DC., 1982, pp. 60-70
8. Webster, N., and Elefteriadou, L. A Simulation Study of
Truck Passenger Car Equivalents (PCE) on Basic Freeway
Sections. In Transportation Research, Vol. 33B, 1999,
pp. 323-336
9. Al-Kaisy, A., Hall, F., and Reisman, E. Developing
Passenger Car Equivalents for Heavy Vehicles on Freeways
During Queue Discharge Flow. In Transportation
Research, Vol. 36A, 2002, pp. 725-742.
10. J usto, C.E.G. and Tuladhar, S.B.S Passenger Car Unit
Values for Urban Roads J ournal of IRC 1984
11. CRRI, Capacity of Roads in Urban Areas 1988
New Delhi
12. Satish Chandra, Virendra Kumar and Sikdar, P.K.
Dynamic PCU and Estimation of Capacity of Urban Roads
Indian Highways 1995
13. Gopakumar, Nair,S , Basu,B and Maitra,B Modeling of
Passenger Car Equivalency on Urban Mid-Block, IIT,
Kharagpur
14. Paul,PK, Thesis Capacity of Urban Arterial Roads,
2009, SPA.
15. Sumner, R., Hill, D., and Shapiro, S. Segment Passenger
Car Equivalent Values for Cost Allocation on Urban
Arterial Roads. In Transportation Research, Vol. 18A,
No. 5/6, 1984, pp. 399-406.
16. Linzer, E., Roess, R., and McShane, W. Effect of Trucks,
Buses, and Recreational Vehicles on Freeway Capacity
and Service Volume. In Transportation Research Record
699.
17. Bais (2007 Dynamic PCU Value for Urban Roads the
School of Planning and Architecture, 2009
TECHNICAL PAPERS
ABSTRACT
Road accident is an unfortunate event that creates ecological
imbalance and social disaster. More than a collision, it is a
situation that leaves behind distress, sorrow & sufferings.
Therefore, identifcation of the causes of road accidents become
highly essential for adopting necessary preventive measures
against this critical event. The damage created by road accidents
is to a large extent unrepairable and therefore needs attention to
eradicate this continuously increasing trend of awful epidemic.
The objective of this research paper is to highlight & focus on the
causes resulting in road accidents in the North-Eastern region of
India by collecting data from various sources. Though we have
concentrated on causes of road accidents, the paper to follow will
highlight on some possible remedies for lessening/eliminating
road accidents of the region specifc in nature.
1 INTRODUCTION
North-Eastern region of India consists of 8 States viz.
Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Arunachal
Pradesh, Nagaland, Tripura & Sikkim. At present the
North-Eastern States of India are mainly suffering
from poor infrastructure regarding transportation &
connectivity problems. Connectivity through rail & air
mode is restricted only to selected places of this region.
Therefore, roads are the only means for travelling to
various places and they act as the veins and arteries
for the fow & movement of people, goods & other
consumables, supporting the business activities in
this region. Each state of this region is dependent on
the other for its business activities, which highlights
the need for good durable & sustainable roads in the
North-Eastern region of India.
Silchar acts as a business hub supporting many states
of the North Eastern region. To analyse the problem
better a survey was conducted at Silchar, Assam to
identify the major ones among the various causes
resulting in road accidents in the North-Eastern
region. Also, the paper will help to project the rate
ROAD ACCIDENT: A THREAT TOWARDS NATIONS PEACE
AND PROSPERITY
BIKRAMJIT DAS GUPTA* AND ABHIJIT KR MANDAL**
of growth in the vehicle population in the last decade
(2000-2010) in the various states of North-East India
and the statistics of the road accidents in those states
during that period.
* Engineer
** Deputy Director (Tech.)
A Truck Loaded with Logs Rammed into the School Bus at Saw
Mer, Upper Shillong (Meghalaya) on 15
th
J une, 2012
(Ref. The Shilong Times 16
th
J une, 2012)
Table 1 State-wise Comparison of Road Accidents at
North-Eastern Region of India in 2008 & 2009
Sl.
No.
State Road
Accidents in
2008
Road
Accidents in
2009
%
Growth
1 Assam 4262 4585 7.57
2 Tripura 767 865 12.77
3 Manipur 502 578 15.13
4 Meghalaya 191 314 64.39
5 Mizoram 87 125 43.67
6 Nagaland 126 47 -62.69
Source: NCRB data bank
National Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project (NATRiP), Silchar Centre,
E-mail: bikramjit.gupta@natrip.in
TECHNICAL PAPERS
Road accident rate in India is among the highest in the
world, with at least 1,34,000 killed each year on the
road. Road fatalities are an epidemic and will become
the worlds ffth biggest killer by 2030. North-Eastern
region of India is an ecologically sensitive place
but lacks the necessary facilities and infrastructure
regarding road transportation, ultimately resulting
in the critical event- road accidents, creating a major
problem for the common people of this region.
2 METHODOLOGY
Initially, for the identifcation of problem (i.e. causes
of road accidents in North-East India), the need for a
survey was realised for collection of primary data. The
survey was conducted at Silchar, Assam. To conduct
the survey, a questionnaire of likert-scale type was
prepared and then the target group was selected to
conduct the survey. The response of the target group
(total respondents: 40 nos) was collected during the
survey and was thoroughly observed & studied for
further analysis.
3 DATA COLLECTION
3.1 Primary Data (Through Survey)
Primary data is collected from the survey conducted
at Silchar, Assam. A questionnaire (likert-scale type)
is used to conduct the survey. The target group for
this survey consists of various offcials from State/
Central Govt. organizations, traffc dept. offcials,
motor vehicle association, service engineers from
vehicle dealers, surveyor & loss assessor from
various insurance companies etc. from the locality.
The questionnaire was prepared on the various factors
causing road accidents in the North-Eastern region of
India. The various factors are:
1. Unskilled drivers.
2. Drunken drivers.
3. Improper Traffc Management System (proper
marking on road & bumps).
4. Non-compliance & lack of awareness regarding
traffc rules.
5. Poor road condition.
6. Unft vehicles.
7. Negligence & careless attitude of pedestrians.
8. High vehicle density.
9. Over-loaded vehicles.
10. Limited Road Network.
11. Fog & rainy weather condition.
The response from the target group is represented in
the histogram as follows:
Fig. 1 Response of Target Group Regarding Unskilled Driver
as a Cause for Road Accidents
Fig. 2 Response of Target Group Regarding Drunken Driver
Fig. 3 Response of Target Group Regarding Non-Compliance
& Lack of Awareness Regarding Traffc Rules as a
Cause for Road Accidents
TECHNICAL PAPERS
3.2 Analysis of Primary Data: After observing
the response from the survey it is understood that
all the above mentioned factors are responsible to a
large extent for the occurrence of road accidents in
the North-Eastern region of India. But among these
various factors, few factors are commonly responsible
for road accidents in this region (for e.g. drunken
driving), while some other factors are specifcally
responsible for road accidents in certain states of this
region. This research paper will highlight the alarming
Fig. 4 Response of Target Group Regarding Road Condition
Fig. 5 Response of Target Group Regarding Unft Vehiclesas a
Cause for Road Accidents
Fig. 6 Response of Target Group Regarding Negligence &
Careless Attitude of Pedestrians as a Cause for Road Accidents
Fig. 7 Response of Target Group Regarding High Vehicle
Density as a Cause for Road Accidents
Fig. 8 Response of Target Group Regarding Over-Loaded
Vehicles as a Cause for Road Accidents
Fig. 9 Response of Target Group Regarding Limited Road
Network as a Cause for Road Accidents
Fig. 10 Response of Target Group Regarding Weather
Condition as a Cause for Road Accidents
TECHNICAL PAPERS
factors/causes resulting in road accidents in North-
East India.
Secondary Data:
(Source: National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB)
data bank, Ministry of Home Affairs)
Assam :
Similar, trend regarding the vehicle population
and road accidents can also be seen in the States of
Tripura & Manipur (ref. to Figs. No. 13, 14, 15 & 16).
Compared to the vehicle population the road accidents
occurring in Tripura is quite high, ultimately resulting
in the increase in the number of fatalities (ref. to
Fig. No. 4).
In case of Manipur, the vehicle population too grew
at a linear rate, but some fuctuations can be seen in
the number of road accidents and fatalities during the
last decade (2000-2009) (ref. to Figs. No. 15 & 16).
It is suggested to take appropriate measures & road
safety initiatives to keep the road accident rate on the
decreasing trend.
Tripura :
Fig. 11 Growth in the Vehicle Population of Assam (2000-2010)
Fig. 12 Linear Growth in the no. of Road Accidents & Fatalities
at Assam (2000-2009)
3.3 Analysis of Secondary Data
(for States of Assam, Tripura & Manipur):
With reference to Figs. No. 11&12, in case of Assam,
the vehicle population is too high and has grown
linearly at a substantial high rate during the last
decade (2000-2010). The high growth in the vehicle
population has also resulted in large number of road
accidents. With the increase in the number of road
accidents (year-wise) the number of fatalities has also
increased in the roads of Assam, making the situation
highly critical and alarming.
Fig. 13 Growth in the Vehicle Population of Tripura (2000-2009)
Fig. 14 Linear Growth in the no. of Road Accidents & Fatalities
at Tripura (2000-2009)
TECHNICAL PAPERS
Manipur :
Fig. 15 Growth in the Vehicle Population of Manipur
(2000-2009)
Fig. 16 Graphical Representation of the no. of Road Accidents
& Fatalities at Manipur (2000-2009)
3.4 Analysis of Secondary Data
(for States of Meghalaya, Mizoram & Nagaland):
In these 3 states (Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland)
the number of road accidents occurred during the last
decade (2000-2009) is comparatively less than those
of Assam, Tripura & Manipur. With reference to
Figs No. 17 & 18, it is observed and understood
that the vehicle population at Meghalaya grew
continuously. But the number of road accidents
increased substantially during 2003, 2005 & 2009
(Source: NCRB data bank). Continuous attention &
road safety initiatives are required to minimize the
number of road accidents each year.
In case of Mizoram (with ref. to Figs. No. 19 &
20) linear growth is observed regarding the vehicle
population during 2000-2009. The number of road
accidents at Mizoram increased marginally from 2000
to 2003, then for few consecutive years the number
of road accidents decreased, but increased suddenly
during 2008 & 2009.
Meghalaya :
Fig. 17 Growth in the Vehicle Population of Meghalaya
(2000-2009)
& Fatalities at Meghalaya (2000-2009)
Mizoram :
Fig. 19 Growth in the Vehicle Population of Mizoram
(2000-2009)
& Fatalities at Mizoram (2000-2009)
TECHNICAL PAPERS
Nagaland :
Fig. 21 Growth in the Vehicle Population of Nagaland
(2000-2009)
& Fatalities at Nagaland (2000-2009)
Nagaland, though being one of the smallest states
of the North-Eastern region (area: 16,579 km
2
),
records the second highest vehicle population (ref. to
Fig. No. 21) of the North-Eastern region (in terms
of number of vehicles registered). Compared to the
vehicle population, the number of road accidents and
fatalities occurred at Nagaland during the last decade
(2000-2009) is marginal.
The data collected from the survey conducted at
Silchar (Assam) is represented in a tabular format
(Table-2). The factors/causes of road accidents are
rated on a likert scale questionnaire by giving rating
from 1 to 5, (explained at the bottom of Table-2). The
average of each of the causes of road accidents in the
North-Eastern region of India is calculated to identify
& understand the fnal result/ output of the survey.
The higher the average value the more responsible
the factor is for the occurrence of road accidents in
this region. Therefore, on this basis, among the ten
factors (mentioned in Table-2), the top fve factors
highly responsible for road accidents in this region,
chronologically are- 1. Limited Road Network,
2. Road Condition, 3 Non-compliance & lack of
awareness regarding traffc rules, 4. Drunken Driving
& 5. Over-loaded vehicles.
Table 2 Data Collection Through Survey
Sl. No. Unskilled
Driver
Drunken
Driver
Non-
Compliance
of Traffc
Rules
Road
Condition
Unft
Vehicles
Negligence
& Careless
Attitude of
Pedestrians
High
Vehicle
Density
Over-
Loaded
Vehicles
Limited
Road
Network
Weather
Condition
1 4 5 4 4 5 4 3 4 4 3
2 3 4 4 5 3 4 3 3 3 3
3 5 5 5 5 4 4 4 5 5 2
4 5 5 5 5 5 4 4 5 5 3
5 5 4 5 4 2 4 4 5 4 3
6 3 4 5 5 2 5 2 5 5 1
7 5 5 4 4 4 4 2 3 4 2
8 5 5 5 5 4 3 2 3 4 2
9 2 4 5 4 4 4 4 2 3 2
10 5 5 5 5 3 2 3 4 4 1
11 3 5 5 5 3 4 4 5 5 2
TECHNICAL PAPERS
Sl. No. Unskilled
Driver
Drunken
Driver
Non-
Compliance
of Traffc
Rules
Road
Condition
Unft
Vehicles
Negligence
& Careless
Attitude of
Pedestrians
High
Vehicle
Density
Over-
Loaded
Vehicles
Limited
Road
Network
Weather
Condition
12 5 5 4 5 5 4 4 4 5 5
13 5 5 4 5 5 4 4 5 5 3
14 5 5 5 3 5 5 3 4 4 2
15 5 5 5 5 3 5 4 5 5 3
16 5 4 4 4 4 2 2 4 5 5
17 5 4 5 5 4 4 4 4 5 3
18 5 4 4 4 4 3 4 4 4 2
19 3 3 4 4 5 4 5 4 5 4
20 4 4 5 5 4 2 5 5 5 2
21 4 4 4 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
22 5 5 5 4 4 4 3 3 5 2
23 5 5 5 4 5 5 5 5 5 5
24 3 4 5 5 5 4 3 5 5 1
25 2 4 1 5 1 5 2 5 5 1
26 4 5 5 5 4 5 5 5 5 2
27 5 5 5 5 5 5 4 5 4 4
28 5 5 5 5 5 5 4 5 5 4
29 5 3 4 5 3 5 5 5 5 4
30 5 5 5 5 5 4 5 5 5 1
31 5 5 5 5 4 5 5 5 5 5
32 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 2
33 4 4 5 5 4 5 5 5 5 4
34 4 5 5 5 5 5 2 5 5 3
35 4 4 4 3 2 4 4 4 5 1
36 5 5 5 5 5 4 5 5 5 4
37 5 5 4 4 4 4 4 5 3 3
38 4 5 4 4 3 3 4 4 5 4
39 5 5 5 5 5 4 4 5 5 5
40 5 4 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 3
Avg: 4.375 4.525 4.55 4.6 4.025 4.125 3.825 4.45 4.625 2.9
5-Completely Agree, 4-Agree, 3-No opinion, 2-Disagree, 1-Completely disagree
Or, 5-Highly responsible, 4-Responsible, 3-Moderate, 2-Not generally, 1-Not responsible at all
Table 2 Contd ...
TECHNICAL PAPERS
Table 3 Correlation Matrix
Unskilled
Driver
Drunken
Driver
Non-
compliance
& lack of
awareness
regarding
traffc rules
Road
Condition
Unft
vehicles
Negligence
of
pedestrians
High
vehicle
density
Over-
loaded
vehicles
Limited
road
network
Weather
condition
Unskilled
Driver
1
Drunken
Driver
0.4358 1
Non-
compliance
& lack of
awareness
regarding
traffc rules
0.3720 0.3115 1
Road
Condition
0.0000 0.1016 0.1622 1
Unft vehicles 0.3711 0.3050 0.4058 0.0993 1
Negligence of
pedestrians
-0.0964 0.0188 0.0100 0.1527 0.0823 1
High vehicles
density
0.1875 -0.1410 0.2660 0.1376 0.2945 0.2046 1
Over-loaded
vehicles
0.1917 0.0848 0.0918 0.4548 0.0796 0.3744 0.3941 1
Limited road
network
0.1195 -0.0085 0.0681 0.3458 0.0924 0.1855 0.2578 0.5608 1
Weather
condition
0.3417 0.0363 0.0580 0.1138 0.4162 0.1738 0.3778 0.1970 0.2047 1
The data from the Table-2 is further used to prepare the
correlation matrix by the application of data analysis
tool in MS excel. A correlation is a single number
that describes the degree of relationship between two
variables. By using the correlation matrix, correlation
among two factors can be established. Coeffcients
having higher value (close to one) will establish high
correlation among the corresponding two factors.
With reference to Table-3, considering coeffcients
whose value is more than 0.5, it is observed that only
four coeffcients have value higher than 0.5. Hence
their corresponding two factors are highly correlated.
Those factors are:
1. Limited road network vs Over-loaded vehicles
(correlation coeff. 0.5608)
2. Over-loaded vehicles vs Road condition (cor.
coeff 0.4548)
3. Drunken Driving vs Unskilled Drivers
(correlation coeff. 0.4358)
4. Weather Condition vs Unft vehicles (cor. coeff.
0.4162)
5. Unft vehicles vs Non-compliance & lack of
awareness regarding traffc rules (cor. coeff.
0.4058)
The above mentioned two factors (no. 1 & 2) are highly
correlated and in many situations are combinedly
responsible for occurrence of road accidents in the
North-Eastern region of India.
TECHNICAL PAPERS
Data Analysis of Table-4 (shown in Annexure-I):
From Table-2, for each factor/variable the average
of four consecutive numbers are calculated. For
normalisation, those values are then divided by 5 and
then by 10 (since 5 is the maximum value of Table-2
and by taking average of four consecutive numbers,
10 values are obtained for each factor/ variable).
Also for each factor/variable the maximum value is
obtained from the correlation matrix (Table-3). Then
for calculating the weightage for each factor/variable,
the summation of the product of those normalised
values (from Table-4) and the maximum value of the
correlation coeffcient of those respective factors/
variables is done, which is shown as follows:-
Calculation of weightage from normalised data:
[Wi] =[Normalised survey data] [Max. value of
correl
n
coeff. for respective factors]
W
1
= (0.085 x 0.4358) +(0.095 x 0.3115) +(0.09 x
0.4058) +(0.095 x 0.4548) +(0.085 x 0.4162)
+(0.08 x 0.3744) +(0.07 x 0.3941) +(0.085 x
0.5608) +(0.085 x 0.3458) +(0.055 x 0.3778)
=0.332
W
2
= (0.09 x 0.4358) + (0.09 x 0.3115) +(0.095
x 0.4058) +(0.09 x 0.4548) +(0.06 x 0.4162)
+(0.08 x 0.3744) +(0.05 x 0.3941) +(0.08 x
0.5608) +(0.085 x 0.3458) +(0.04 x 0.3778)
=0.305
and so on..
Therefore,
1. Limited road network (Weightage, W
9
=0.358)
2. Over-loaded vehicles (Weightage, W
8
=0.356)
3. Weather condition (Weightage, W
10
=0.355)
4. Negligence & careless attitude of pedestrians
(Weightage, W
6
=0.351)
5. High vehicle density (Weightage, W
7
=0.345)
6. Road condition (Weightage, W
4
=0.341)
7. Unskilled Driver (Weightage, W
1
=0.332)
8. Unft vehicles (Weightage, W
5
=0.33)
9. Non-compliance & lack of awareness regarding
traffc rules (Weightage, W
3
=0.317)
10. Drunken Driving (Weightage, W
2
=0.305)
Photo from Assam Times News Paper (Assam),
Dated 13
th
Aug2010
Hafong-Silchar road in dilapidated condition
13 August, 2010, Anup Biswas
Photo From Seven Sisters Post Newspaper (Assam),
Dated 7
th
May 2012
Hafong-Silchar road
TECHNICAL PAPERS
Factors with higher value of weightage are more
responsible for the occurrence of road accidents in
the North-Eastern region of India (i.e. limited road
network, over-loaded vehicles, weather condition and
so on).
The general objective function of road accidents
can be related with the identifed factor (higher the
weightage value, higher is the contribution towards
road accidents) as,
Road Accident (y) =
i =1

10
W
i
x
i
, i =no. of factors
(Chance cause or probability)
Where,
x
1
= unskilled driver
x
2
= drunken driver
x
3
= Non-compliance & lack of awareness
regarding traffc rules
x
4
= Road condition
x
5
= Unft vehicles
x
6
= Negligence & careless attitude of
pedestrians
x
7
= High vehicle density
x
8
= Over-loaded vehicles
x
9
= Limited road network
x
10
= Weather condition
The data for the various factors/variables are obtained
from the survey (in Table-2) conducted at Silchar
(Assam) is specifc for the North-Eastern region of
India. Therefore, the above mentioned equation of
road accident is also specifc for this region.
5 CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATION:
As shown in Table-2, limited road network appears
to be the most signifcant factor resulting in road
accidents in the North-Eastern region of India,
followed by road condition, non-compliance & lack
of awareness with respect to traffc rules, drunken
driving and over-loaded vehicles. But apart from
these individual causes responsible for occurrence
of road accidents in this region, it is more essential
to fnd out a correlation between two factors/causes
mainly resulting in road accidents in this region. From
Table-3 (considering correlation between two factors),
limited road network vs over-loaded vehicles shows
the maximum correlation coeffcient (i.e. 0.5608),
followed by over-loaded vehicles vs road condition
(correlation coeffcient 0.4548), which means that
those combinations result in maximum road accidents
and also those respective factors need immediate and
serious attention. Therefore, it is recommended that
running of over-loaded vehicles on the poor & limited
roads of North-East India is very risky & has higher
probability of road accidents.
But, based on the response from the target group
during this survey & the correlation matrix (Table-3),
the correlation coeffcient between drunken driving
vs unskilled drivers is obtained (i.e. 0.4358), which
means that the target group perceives that the chance
of occurrence of road accidents with this combination
is very less and therefore the correlation coeffcient is
also relatively less (i.e. 0.4358). Similar conclusion
can also be drawn for the remaining correlations
(between two factors) with lesser correlation
coeffcients (mentioned in Table-3). Moreover, it
is also recommended that the drivers of this region
should be properly trained and educated to change
their basic mentality & behaviour and also to make
them aware while driving on the road.
REFERENCES
1. http://ncrb.gov.in/adsi/data/ADSI2000/accidental-deaths-
00.pdf
2. http://ncrb.gov.in/adsi/data/ADSI2001/Accidental.htm
3. http://ncrb.gov.in/adsi/data/ADSI2003/accident03.pdf
4. http://ncrb.gov.in/adsi/data/ADSI2005/accident05.pdf
5. http://ncrb.gov.in/adsi/data/ADSI2006/Accident06.pdf
6. http://ncrb.gov.in/adsi/data/ADSI2007/Accident07.pdf
7. http://ncrb.gov.in/ADSI2008/accidental-deaths-08.pdf
8. http://ncrb.gov.in/CD-ADSI2009/accidental-deaths-09.
pdf
9. http://ncrb.gov.in/ADSI2010/accidental-deaths-10.pdf
10. http://www.theshillongtimes.com/2012/06/
TECHNICAL PAPERS
Annexure-I
Table 4 Matrix for Calculation of Weightage for Various Factors
Variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Correlation
coeff. (max.
value)
Unskilled
Driver
0.085 0.095 0.09 0.095 0.085 0.08 0.07 0.085 0.085 0.055 0.4358
Drunken
Driver
0.09 0.09 0.095 0.09 0.06 0.08 0.05 0.08 0.085 0.04 0.3115
Non-
compliance
& lack of
awareness
regarding
traffc rules
0.075 0.095 0.095 0.095 0.075 0.07 0.075 0.075 0.085 0.05 0.4058
Road
Condition
0.1 0.095 0.09 0.085 0.085 0.08 0.065 0.09 0.095 0.065 0.4548
Unft
vehicles
0.085 0.075 0.09 0.09 0.085 0.065 0.09 0.085 0.095 0.055 0.4162
Negligence
& careless
attitude of
pedestrians
0.085 0.09 0.095 0.09 0.095 0.09 0.08 0.09 0.1 0.065 0.3744
High
vehicle
density
0.08 0.095 0.08 0.1 0.075 0.1 0.075 0.1 0.095 0.055 0.3941
Over-loaded
vehicles
0.095 0.085 0.09 0.095 0.08 0.09 0.095 0.095 0.095 0.06 0.5608
Limited
road
network
0.085 0.09 0.095 0.09 0.08 0.09 0.08 0.095 0.1 0.08 0.3458
Weather
condition
0.095 0.095 0.09 0.09 0.085 0.08 0.085 0.095 0.09 0.075 0.3778
OBITUARY
The Indian Roads Congress express their profound sorrow on the sad demise of Dr. Vijay Trimbak Ganpule
resident of F. No.101 & 101-A, Laxmikant Apt-A, Shree Hanuman Chs., Opp. Kakad Ind. Estate, Off. T.H.
Kataria Marg, Sitaram Keer Marg, Mumbai on 14
th
March 2013. He was an active member of the Indian
Roads Congress.
May his soul rest in peace.
The Indian Roads Congress express their profound sorrow on the sad demise of Shri M. Amirthalingam,
Joint Chief Engineer (Highways) & Offcer on Special Duty (Retd.), 21, Gopal Pillaiyar Koil Street,
Thiruvannamalai (Tamil Nadu). He was an active member of the Indian Roads Congress.
May his soul rest in peace.
ABSTRACT
Cinder is a waste material generated as coal residues from the
blast furnace of power plant at TATA Steel Industries, J harkhand,
India. Another waste material, Slag is generated as a byproduct
during the manufacturing of molten iron. Both cinder and slag
were dumped together at the dumping site (80% cinder and 20%
slag) and is commonly called cinder as it mainly contains cinder.
The material has very limited applications. Cinder material was
collected from the dump area and was investigated for its feasibility
in the road embankment and sub grade. The paper discusses the
physical, chemical and geotechnical properties of cinder and results
of typical stability analysis of cinder embankment. The paper also
discusses the suitability of cinder waste for embankment and sub
grade considering the MORTH Specifcations. It was concluded
that the material has potential for the construction of embankment
while it is unsuitable for sub grade.
1 INTRODUCTION
Cinder and slag are waste materials mainly consists
of oxides of silica, aluminum and iron (97%). Both
cinder and slag were dumped together at the dumping
site, outside the plant, shown in the Fig.1. The
dump shown was formed over a period of 70 years.
The slope of the dump is about 450 and the height
is varying from 10 m to 45 m. Presently, it has no
applications and occupying costly land near the plant.
The material was collected and investigated for its
physical, chemical and geotechnical characteristics
to determine its suitability for embankment and sub
grade.
2 MATERIAL
Cinder sample was collected from the existing dump
yard commonly known as J ugasalai dumping yard,
outside the TATA industries, J amshedpur, J harkhand.
The material was observed to be coarse grained and
light weight (as compared to soil).
CINDER WASTE MATERIAL FOR THE
CONSTRUCTION OF ROAD
V.G. HAVANAGI*, A.K. SINHA*, V. K. KANAUJIA**, A. RANJAN* AND S. MATHUR*
3 PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL
CHARACTERISTICS OF CINDER
Cinder samples were investigated for their physical
and chemical characteristics. Different physical tests
which were carried out include (a) Natural moisture
content (b) Specifc gravity test and (c) Free swelling
index test.
3.1 Natural Moisture Content
Natural moisture content of cinder was determined by
oven drying at 105C. The natural moisture content
was observed to be 0.4%. Cinder was observed to be
dry in the site condition.
3.2 Specifc Gravity Test (G)
Specifc gravity test was carried out as per Indian
Standard method. The value of specifc gravity was
observed to be 2.15. The specifc gravity of cinder is
low due to presence of unburnt carbon.
3.3 Free Swelling Index Test
Free swelling index test was carried out as per Indian
Standard method and observed to be non swelling in
nature.
* Scientists, CRRI, New Delhi
** Sr. Technical Offcer, CRRI, New Delhi,
Fig. 1 Pictorial View of Cinder Dump Yard
TECHNICAL PAPERS
3.4 Chemical Analysis
Chemical analysis was carried out of cinder sample.
Results of chemical analysis of dump material are
given in Table 1. Cinder mainly contains oxides of
Silica, Alumina and Iron amounting to about 97%.
Table 1 Chemical Characteristics of Cinder Material
Chemical parameters Value
Silica, SiO
2
62.01%
Alumina, Al
2
O
3
29.2%
Iron oxide, Fe
2
O
3
5.7%
Magnesium oxide, MgO 1.42%
CaO 1.67%
pH 6
* Report TATA (2011) [1]
4 GEOTECHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS
OF CINDER
Different geotechnical tests which were carried out
include (a) Grain size analysis (b) Atterberg limit test
(c) Proctor compaction test (d) California Bearing Ratio
test (e) Hydraulic conductivity test (f) Consolidation
test, and (g) Direct shear test. The results have been
briefy discussed below.
4.1 Grain Size Analysis
The grain size analysis was carried out as per Indian
Standard method. It was observed that cinder is a
coarse grained material having gravel (52%), sand
(38%) and silt (10%).
4.2 Atterberg Limit Test
The plasticity characteristics were determined as per
Indian Standard method. Cinder was observed to be
non-plastic in nature. According to BIS classifcation
[2], cinder is classifed as GP i.e. poorly graded
gravel.
4.3 Proctor Compaction Test
Modifed Proctor compaction test was carried out
as per Indian Standard method. The Maximum Dry
Density (MDD) and Optimum Moisture Content
(OMC) were observed to be 12.7 kN/m
3
and 27%
respectively. The compaction curve is observed to
be fat indicating in-sensitiveness of dry density with
moisture content. The low MDD of cinder is due to its
low specifc gravity value.
4.4 California Bearing Ratio Test
California Bearing Ratio test was carried out as per
Indian Standard method. Three specimens were
prepared by compacting the samples at 97% of their
respective MDD/OMC. The specimens were then
soaked for 4 days in potable water before testing. The
specimens were then sheared at the rate of 1.25 mm/
min. The average value of soaked CBR was observed
to be 108%. Higher value of CBR may be due to high
shear strength of compacted non cohesive granular
particles.
4.5 Consolidation Test
Consolidation test was carried out as per Indian
Standard method. The value of coeffcient of
consolidation Cv was observed to be 410
-4
cm
2
/s and
compression index (Cc) was observed to be 0.04. The
value of Cc indicates that material is low compressible
in nature.
4.6 Hydraulic Conductivity Test
Hydraulic conductivity test was carried out on
compacted cinder samples as per Indian Standard
method. Remolded samples were prepared at Modifed
Maximum Dry Density (MDD). The coeffcient of
permeability is determined as 6.310
-5
cm/s. The
value indicates that it is a free draining material and
has the potential for utilization as an embankment fll,
sub grade.
4.7 Direct Shear Test
Direct shear test was carried out as per Indian Standard
method. The sample was oven dried and passed through
4.75 mm sieve. Three specimens of size 60x60x25mm
TECHNICAL PAPERS
were prepared at MDD/OMC. The specimens were
saturated and Consolidated Drained (CD) test was
carried out. The specimens were sheared at the rate of
1.25 mm/min. Cinder samples were observed to be non
cohesive with angle of internal friction () determined
as 45. The value indicates that cinder samples have
high shear strength.
5 SUITABILITY OF CINDER FOR
EMBANKMENT AND SUB GRADE
Results of detailed laboratory investigation were
analyzed to arrive at conclusions regarding the
suitability of cinder waste material for embankment
and sub grade layers of road pavement.
5.1 As an Embankment Material
Cinder is cohesionless, non plastic, non swelling
material having high shear strength characteristics.
The material is less compressible (Cc=0.04) and has
good drainage property. The material has the potential
for construction of road embankment. As there is
a possibility of erosion, side cover of 2 m thick on
either side with good earth may be provided on cinder
embankment slope.
5.2 As a Sub Grade Material
The dry density of cinder material (Y
d
=12.7 kN/m
3
)
did not satisfy the maximum density requirement
(17.5 kN/m
3
or 16.5 kN/m
3
) as per MORTH
Specifcations [3]. Also it is observed that 20% cinder
material (>2.36mm) is crushable in nature. Hence,
cinder is concluded to be not feasible for subgrade
construction.
6 DESIGN AND STABILITY ANALYSIS OF
CINDER EMBANKMENT
Considering the potential of cinder for embankment
construction, a typical 3m high cinder embankment
was analyzed for stability analysis. Details of the
analysis are given below:
6.1 Design Parameters
The geotechnical parameters required for the
stability analysis viz. Bulk density and shear strength
characteristics were arrived by detailed laboratory
investigation. Sub soil parameters were assumed as
dry density =19.7 k/m
3
, OMC =10 %, angle of internal
friction =29 and Cohesion =5 kNm
2
. The slope of
the embankment is considered as 1V:2H, side cover of
thickness 2 m (Horizontal) of soil, surcharge loading
on the embankment due to pavement crust thickness
and traffc loading is assumed as 24 kN/m
2
.
6.2 Stability Analysis
It was proposed to use 100% cinder for the
construction of embankment. Stability analysis was
carried out under different moisture conditions i.e.
partially saturated, fully saturated and sudden draw
down. Seismic factors viz.
h
= 0.05 and
v
=0.025
were also considered for the analysis. Stability was
checked using computer software based on classical
theory with limit state approach. A typical critical slip
surface of partially saturated cinder embankment is
shown in the Fig.2. The results of factor of safety have
been summarized in Table 2.
Fig. 2 A Typical Stability Analysis of Cinder Embankment
TECHNICAL PAPERS
Table 2 Results of Factor of Safety of Cinder
Embankment
Saturated Condition Earthquake condition
Without With
Partially saturated 1.61 1.59
2m HFL 1.39 1.16
Sudden draw down 1.34 1.14
It is observed that factor of safety values varied in
the range 1.61 to 1.14 under different saturation
conditions. The cinder embankment is observed to be
safe even under the worst draw down condition. The
present design is a typical case, detailed design needs
to be carried out for a site specifc case considering
local traffc, environmental and seismic conditions.
7 CONCLUSIONS
Cinder waste material was collected from TATA
industries, J amshedpur. The material was evaluated
for its physical, chemical and geotechnical
characteristics. Different laboratory tests which were
carried out included: Grain size analysis, Atterberg
limit test, Free swelling index, Specifc gravity,
Proctor compaction test, CBR test, Consolidation
test, Hydraulic conductivity test, and Direct shear
test. Brief summary of conclusions have been given
below:
Cinder was observed to be coarse grained
and non-plastic material. According to BIS
classifcation, Cinder was classifed as GP i.e.
poorly graded gravel.
The value of specifc gravity was observed to
be 2.15. The specifc gravity of cinder is low as
compared to soil. This may be due to unburnt
carbon content present in the cinder waste.
Compaction characteristics viz. Maximum
Dry Density (MDD) and Optimum Moisture
Content (OMC) were observed to be
12.7 kN/m
3
and 27% respectively. The
compaction curve is observed to be fat
indicating in-sensitiveness of dry density with
moisture content.
The value of compression index (Cc) was
observed to be 0.04. Cinder material was
observed to be non cohesive with angle
of internal friction () determined as 450.
The geotechnical parameters indicated the
potential of cinder material for embankment
construction.
It was concluded that cinder material is not
feasible for the construction of sub grade as the
material is crushable and may result in failure
of subgrade.
REFERENCES
1. Tata Report (2011). Chemical analysis of cinder waste
material.
2. IS 1498 - 1970. Classifcation and identifcation of soils
for general engineering purposes. Published by Bureau of
Indian standard, New Delhi.
3. MORTH (2001). Specifcations for Road and Bridge
Works, Published by Indian Roads Congress.

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