Prof. Dr.

Padma Bahadur Shahi

It is the process of estimating the number of vehicles or

travelers that will use a specific transportation facility in
the future.
A forecast estimates, for instance, the number of vehicles
on a planned highway or bridge, the ridership on a
railway line, the number of passengers patronizing an
airport, or the number of ships calling on a seaport.
Traffic forecasting begins with the collection of data on
current traffic.
Together with data on population, employment, trip
rates, travel costs, etc., traffic data are used to develop a
traffic demand model.
Feeding data on future population, employment, etc.
into the model results in output for future traffic,
typically estimated for each segment of the
transportation infrastructure in question, e.g., each
roadway segment or each railway station.

Forecasting

Techniques
Qualitative
Models

Time Series
Methods
Delphi
Method

Naive

Jury of Executive
Opinion

Moving
Average

Sales Force
Composite

Weighted
Moving Average

Consumer Market
Survey

Exponential
Smoothing
Trend Analysis

Causal
Methods

Seasonality
Simple
Regression
Multiple
Regression

Analysis

Multiplicative
Decomposition

Qualitative

incorporates
judgmental & subjective factors into
forecast.

Time-Series attempts to predict the
future by using historical data.

Causal (contributory) incorporates
factors that may influence the
quantity being forecasted into the
model

Traffic forecasts are used for several key purposes in

transportation policy, planning, and engineering: to
calculate the capacity of infrastructure, e.g., how
many lanes a bridge should have; to estimate the
financial and social viability of projects, e.g., using
cost-benefit analysis and Social impact analysis; and
to calculate environmental assessment, e.g., air
pollution and noise.

Within
the
rational
planning
framework,
transportation forecasts have traditionally followed
the sequential four-step model or urban
transportation planning (UTP) procedure.
Typically, forecasts are made for the region as a
whole, e.g., of population growth. Such forecasts
provide control totals for the local land use analysis.
Typically, the region is divided into zones and by
trend or regression analysis, the population and
employment are determined for each

Trip generation

Trip Distribution

Tij

Tij auto
Modal Split

Tij transit

Traffic Assignment
j
i
route network
Dr. P. B. Shahi

22

Trip Generation: determines the frequency of

origins or destinations of trips in each zone by trip
purpose, as a function of land uses and household
demographics, and other socio-economic factors.
Trip
distribution:
matches
origins
with
destinations, often using a gravity model function.
Modal Split model: computes the proportion of
trips between each origin and destination that use a
particular transportation mode. This model is often
of the logit form.
Traffic Assignment models:
allocates trips
between an origin and destination by a particular
mode to a route.



Vehicle Classification
AADT & ADT
Manual: 24 hour count: classified count
Continuous count:

Automatic devices (sensors)

Traffic counts carried out over a very short time

period can produce large errors because traffic flows
have large hourly, daily, weekly, monthly and
seasonal variations.
Hourly Variation:

300
250
200
150
100
50
0

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24



12 hours count (6-18 hrs): 80% of days traffic

16 hours count (6-22 hours): 90% of days traffic



Week days & holidays trip rates are different

Always avoid holidays traffic count for data analysis
Whole week count may confirm the daily variation

1.4

1.2

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Traffic Count Survey

Result of Classified manual count
Date: 2067/1/12
Road Link: EW Highway, at Lahan
Name of Road: Belbari Chauharwa (B-C)
Seasonal Variation Factor: 0.85

Location:Near Lahan bazar (west 500m)

Station:
Surveyed by: Manoj Prajapati
Supervised by:Firoj Shrestha

Motorized Vehicle

Total

Bicycle

Rikshaw

Animal cart

Motor Cycle

Power triller

Tractor

Auto Rikshaw

Utility/Pick up

Car/Jeep/Taxi

Micro

Mini

Large

Mini

3-Axle
Axle

Start Time

Bus

2-Axle
Axle

Truck

Non Motorized

(a+b)

06:00 - 18:00

24 19 77

81 16 19 96 83 41 40 112 108 90

82 16 16 42 59 52 52

1 625 594 18 8 38 38 857

888 2108 2088 4196

18:00 - 06:00

41 40 46

39 10 3 103 60 12 5

21

0 87 134 11 2

169

1 712 728 29 10 45 47 1044 1057 2693 2626 5321

Sub-Total

16 13 17

7 31 31

65 59 123 120 26 22 199 143 53 45 128 121 107 103 24 21 48 66 83 83

187

585

538 1123

Total (a+b)

124

243

48

342

98

249

210

45

114

166

1440

39

92

2101

5319

Composition, %

2.3

4.6

0.9

6.4

1.8

4.7

3.9

0.8

2.1

3.1

0.2

27.1

0.7

1.7

39.5

100

1.5

2.5

1.5

0.75

1.5

1.5

1.5

0.5

PCU, ADT

496

729

72

1026

245

374

210

45

86

249

12

2160

312

92

1051

7158

AADT, PCU

422

620

61

872

208

317

179

38

73

212

10

1836

265

78

893

6084

PCU Factors



Nor carrying out Classified count

Not distinguishing two-way & One-way traffic data
Not distinguishing between directions in traffic
count
Incase of automatic count : axle count and vehicle
count
Converting a partial-day counting to a full-day count



Essential for pavement design

Volume can be found by traffic count and Vehicle
load is found by axle load survey.
It is carried out to determine the axle load
distribution of heavy vehicles using road.
These data are then used to calculate the mean
number of equivalent axles for atypical vehicle class.
If flow is too high sampling will need to be selected
for weighing.
All vehicles need not to be weighed. (less than 1.5
tonnes.

Methods:

Fixed weigh bridge

Portable weigh pads
Weigh in Motion

New Expensive Technology less accuracy

Brief classified count must be carried out in advance

the axle load survey
At least 12 hours axle load survey covering 80%
vehicles.
Sampling

Up to 60 heavy vehicles per hour: all

61 to 120 alternate vehicles
121 to 180 one in three
181 to 240 one in four

2
3
4
5
Rear Axle Load MT
Rear Axle Load MT
Rear Axle Load MT
Rear Axle Load MT
Rear Axle Load MT
Rear Axle Load MT
Rear Axle Load MT
Rear Axle Load MT

8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

R/S

Rear 3
L/S

R/S

Rear 2
L/S

Location:

R/S

Rear 1
L/S

R/S

Front
L/S

R/S

L/S

Destination
Front Axle Load MT

7
Origin
Front Axle Load MT

6
Nature of Load

Loading: Full (F),

Partial
(P), Empty (E)

Road:

Axle Configuration

Vehicle-Type

Registration

Direction

1
Time

Date

Road CONNECTIVITY SECTOR 1 PROJECT

Axle Load survey

Survey Period/Duration:
Rear 4

axle load analysis.xls

Rear axle dual wheel

Axleload
EF =

8.16

4.5

Front axle single wheel

Axleload
EF =

5.41

4.5



Standard axle load of 8.16 ton will have an EF=1

The axle load of 16.32 ton will have EF=22.6
This means doubling the axle load will not simply
double the damaging effect but it will increase it by
over 22 times.



Growth factor:
r is annual growth rate
n is number of design year
Total cumulative Equivalent Single Axle:

(1+r) 1
GF=
r
n