UNIVERSITY OF MAURITIUS

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING

FIRST SEMESTER EXAMINATIONS

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009

PROGRAMME BEng (Hons) Civil Engineering

MODULE NAME Traffic Engineering

DATE Friday MODULE CODE CIVE 3219(5)

11 December 2009

TIME 9.30 – 11.30 hrs DURATION Two hours

NO. OF 5 NO. OF QUESTIONS 4

QUESTIONS SET TO BE ATTEMPTED

INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES

Answer any 4 questions.

All questions carry equal marks.

 TRAFFIC ENGINEERING – CIVE 3219(5)

Answer any 4 questions.

Question 1

(a) In the context of travel behaviour, define the term ‘trip’ and list the attributes
usually associated with it.
[5 marks]

(b) The three modal choices available for an urban area are car (C), car sharing (CS),
and bus (B) and their utility functions have been estimated as:

UC = 2.2 – 0.2(costC) – 0.03(travel timeC)

UCS = 0.8 – 0.2(costCS) – 0.03(travel timeCS)

UB = -0.2(costB) – 0.01(travel timeB)

The cost is in units and time is in minutes.

(I) 4000 workers depart for work during the peak hour. For all workers, the cost of
using a car is 4 units with travel time of 20 minutes and the bus fare is 0.5 unit
with a travel time of 25 minutes.

If the car sharing option always consists of two travellers sharing cost equally,
determine the number of workers using each of the three modes

(II) If a bus lane is constructed which would reduce bus travel time to 10 minutes,

(i) determine the expected modal distribution of trips.

(ii) If the shared cars are also permitted to use the facility and travel time for
both bus and shared car mode is 10 minutes, determine the modal
distribution.

(III) Given the conditions described in (ii), determine the modal distribution if the bus
ride is free.
[20 marks]

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 TRAFFIC ENGINEERING – CIVE 3219(5)

Question 2

(a) Use neat sketches to describe the relationships between flow, speed and density
for a highway traffic stream. Indicate how the speed of a shockwave formed by a
bottleneck can be calculated.
[10 marks]
(b) A motorway has a flow–density relationship approximated by:

q = 80k for 0 ≤ k ≤ 30

q = 3 200 –26.67k for 30 ≤ k ≤ 120

where k is in vehicles per lane per kilometer.

For a particular day the flow is 2 000 veh/ln/h. At 8.00 am, an incident occurs
which reduces the capacity to 1 600 veh/ln/h. The incident is cleared 45 minutes
later and the flow returns to the normal capacity of 2 400 veh/ln/h.

Calculate the speeds of the shockwave at the beginning and end of the incident.
[15 marks]

Question 3

(a) Describe how the journey speed of a traffic stream on a single carriageway
arterial can be measured, elaborating on the advantages and limitations of the
method.
[9 marks]

(b) While taking measurements by the moving observer method, a test vehicle
covered a 1-km section in 72 seconds going against traffic and 132 seconds going
with traffic. Given that the traffic flow was 800 veh/h and that the test vehicle
overtook 10 more vehicles than was overtaken when going with the traffic, find

(i) the number of vehicles met by the test vehicle while moving against the
stream,
(ii) the speed of the traffic being measured,
(iii) the density of the traffic stream and
(iv) whether on its run with traffic, the test vehicle was travelling faster or
slower than the traffic stream.
[16 marks]

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 TRAFFIC ENGINEERING – CIVE 3219(5)

Question 4

(a) Discuss the factors that affect the maximum number of vehicles that can be
discharged per cycle over a traffic signal stop line.
[10 marks]

(b) At an intersection controlled by 2 phase signal operation set at the optimum

cycle time of 30 seconds, saturation flow on all approaches is equal and the flows
used for design purposes are in the ratio of 2:1 for phase 1 and phase 2. A 4-
second intergreen period is employed.

The traffic flow on phase 2 increases by 100 per cent and a 15 second intergreen
period is introduced for pedestrian use on the change of green from phase 1 to
phase 2. Starting delays may be taken as 4 seconds per cycle in both cases. Show
that the optimum cycle time increases by approximately 250 per cent.
[15 marks]

Question 5

(a) Explain the term ‘capacity of highways between intersections’ and elaborate on five
factors limiting its value.
[9 marks]

(b) What are the functions of intersections? Describe five factors that should be
considered when deciding on the type of intersection to be adopted.
[8 marks]

(c) Give three objectives of Traffic Management and discuss five management
schemes that have been applied for the Port Louis region.
[8 marks]

END OF QUESTION PAPER

/kp

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