Part 1: Traffic engineering

Types of flow

Relationship of flow, Speed and density

 Traffic Flow
• Classified as:
1. Uninterrupted – flow occurring at long
sections of road where vehicles are
not required to stop by any cause
external to the traffic stream

2. Interrupted – flow occurring at

intersection or driveways where
vehicles are required to stop by any
cause outside the traffic stream – such
as traffic signs (STOP or YIELD), traffic
signal ights, etc.
Major Traffic Variables
• Uniterrupted flow can be described using any
of the following traffic variables:
– Flow Rate or Volume
– Speed
– Density or Concentration
Flow Rate or Volume
• Flow rate - is defined as the number of
Vehicles passing a point during a specified
period of time
1
2
3
4
L 5
Distance

a a

Time
• If N vehicles (represented by trajectories
crossing line a-a) passed this point in time T,
flow rate q may be expressed as:
N
q (1)
T
• In general, flow rate will have units like vehicle per minute, per
hour, or per day
 Example 1
• A 15-minute count of vehicles bound for Adama was
conducted at a particular location on the express way. A
summary id shown in the table below:
TYPE 15-minure count
Car 420
Mini Bus 300
Bus 16
Truck 28
• Estimate the flow rate in vehicles per hour assuming the
count within the 15-min interval to be the same for the three
15-min intervals.
Speed
• Speed is defined as rate of motion in distance
per unit time.
• When describing traffic stream, two types of
speed are used:
– Time Mean Speed
– Space Mean Speed
Time Mean Speed (TMS)
• Also called as “Spot Speed”
• Is the arithmetic mean of the speeds of the vehicles passing a
point within a given interval of time

Figure: Measuring
spot speed using
trap-length method

• Let ui – speed of vehicle i, in kilometers per hour

• ti – time it takes for vehicle I to traverse the trap length, in seconds
• Δx – trap length, in meters
• Then,
x
ui   3.6
ti
• Knowing the individual speeds of n vehicles observed within
time T, the TMS of the traffic stream is given by:

u i
ut  i 1
n
Example 2
• The speeds of 25 cars were observed. 10 cars
were noted to travel at 35kph, 8 cars at 40kph,
2 cars at 50kph, and 5 cars at 45kph. Assuming
that each car was travelling at constant speed,
determine the time mean speed.
Space Mean Speed (SMS)

• Is used to describe the rate of movement od a traffic stream

within a given section of road.
• It is the speed based on the average travel time of vehicles in
the stream within the section
• Also called as “ Harmonic Mean Speed”
• If n vehicles are observed at an instant of time
t, the space mean speed is computed as
follows:
n
us  n
1

u 1 ui

L nL
us  n
 n

t
i 1
i t
i 1
i

n
Example 3
• The speeds of 25 cars were observed. 10 cars
were noted to travel at 35kph, 8 cars at 40kph,
2 cars at 50kph, and 5 cars at 45kph. Assuming
that each car was travelling at constant speed,
determine the space mean speed.
• The time mean speed is always higher than the space mean
speed. The difference between these speeds tends to
decrease as the absolute values of speeds increase. It has
been shown from field data that the relationship between
time mean speed and space mean speed can be given a

• a more direct relationship developed by Garber and Sankar

using data collected at several sites on freeways
 Density
• Density – is defined as the number of vehicles
in a given length of road at an instant point in
time.
1

2
3
4
5
Distance

Time
• Using the same figure 1, the number of
vehicles counted at time t divided by the
length of the section L gives a measure
of density at that section.

n
k
L
• Among these three variables, density
proves to be the most difficult or
expensive to observe.
• Uses aerial photos
 Measurement
• Density can easily be measured by remote sensing, but has
historically been difficult to measure
– Use occupancy obtained from loop-detectors
• TMS more easy to measure than SMS
– Use correction or approximation
– Easy to measure with remote sensing (GPS)
• Flow is easy to measure
• Occupancy is measure of density
• Only need to measure 2 of 3
Loop Detector

Freeway Monitoring
 Other traffic variables
• Time Headway – is defined as the time interval between
passage of consecutive vehicles at a specified point on the
road with a unit of time per vehicle.
1
Time headway
2
3
4
5
Distance

a a

Time
• From figure, where N vehicles were counted
to pass line a-a within the observation time T,
let hi be the time headway 2 consecutive
vehicles
• The average headway representing all
observed vehicles is estimated using
arithmetic mean.
• If there are N vehicles observed, then there
will N-1 headways that will be measured.
 N 1
• Time headway
h i
hi  i 1
N 1
• For longer observation period:
N 1
T
•  hi  T and N 1  N
i 1
, or ht 
N
• Therefore, the average time headway and flow rate are
related as follows:
1
ht 
q
 Example 4
• During the morning peak hour, the average headway of
Churchill bound bus is estimated at 5 minutes. If the
passenger demand during the same period is 240, determine
whether there is a need to increase the number of bus ( or
shorten the headway) for this route. Assume that passenger
demand is evenly distributed within that period and the
average load /occupancy is 14 passenger per bus.
 Space Headway (spacing)
• Spacing is the distance between two vehicles measured from
the front bumper of a vehicle to that of another
• Similar to the estimation of time headway, if there are n
vehicles within a given road section L, the sum of (n-1) spacing
Si will be almost equal to L. Average spacing is therefore the
inverse of density:
1
s
k
Example 5
• During the heavy congestion, it was observed
that the average spacing of vehicles in queue
of a major highway is 6.5 meters. Determine
the jam density or density of stopped vehicles.
Relationship of flow, Speed and density

• A relationship exist among 3 most important traffic

variables: Flow, Space Mean speed, and density.
• A dimensional analysis of the units will show that the
flow rate (veh/hr) is simply the product of density
(veh.km) ans space mean speed (km.hr)

q  k  us (2)
Observed Relation
(South Luzon expressway Scatter plot)
Observed Relation
(South Luzon expressway Scatter plot)
Observed Relation
(South Luzon expressway Scatter plot)
 Mathematical Relations
• Mathematical relationships describing traffic flow can be
classified into two general categories:

– Macroscopic
– Microscopic

 depending on the approach used in the development of these

relationships. The macroscopic approach considers flow density
relationships whereas the microscopic approach considers spacings
between vehicles and speeds of individual vehicles.
Speed density relation

• This linear relation was

first investigated by
Greenshields.

• To describe this line, the

density corresponding to
(3) zero speed will be called
jam density (kj) and the
speed coresponding to zero
density will be called free
flow speed (uf).

• Theoretically, density is
not zero since atleast one
vehicle must be present
 Example 6
• Data on density and speed were obtained from the
4-lane, 2-way rural highway (in one direction only):
Density, veh/km Speed, kph
75 45
15 85
142 10
100 30

• Determine the relation between density and speed

Point k u ku k^2 (k-83)^2 (u-42.5)^2
1 75 45 3375 5625 64 6.25
2 15 85 1275 225 4624 1806.25
3 142 10 1420 20164 3481 1056.25
4 100 30 3000 10000 289 156.25
sum 332 170 9070 36014 8458 3025
mean 83 42.5
Example 7
• Using the results of the previous example, determine
the free flow speed and jam density
 Volume- Density relation
• From equation 2 and 3:
 k
2

q  uf k  
 k 
 j 
• This equation expresses the relation of q and k as parabolic.
• Due to the symmetry of the figure, it can be said that the
maximum flow qmax occurs when the density has a value of
km equal to half of jam density kj.

• However, when the relation cant be easily identified, it is

useful to differentiate the function and equal to zero to get
the value of km corresponding to maximum flow.

dq  2k m 
 u f 1  0
dk  k 
 j 
kj
km 
2
Volume-Speed relation
• From equation 2, it can also be shown that
 us 
k  k j 1  
 u 
 f 

• Substituting this equation in (1) gives a

parabolic relation between q and us
 u 2 
q  kus  k j  u s  s 
 uf 
 
• This relation is illustrated below:

• Again, it can be shown that max flow qmax occurs at

speed um equal to half of the free flow speed uf.
• Therefore, the value of the max flow, also called
CAPACITY is

kj uf k ju f
qmax  km  um   
2 2 4

• Going back to the speed-density relation, qmax is

shown to be the shaded area of the rectangle
Example 8
• In the previous example, determine the
capacity of the rural highway in one direction.
Appendix
 Traffic Data
Time Period q (veh/hr) v (km/hr) Occupancy (%) Density (veh/km)
1 1,620 91 10 17.80
2 1,980 90 11 22.00
3 2,160 90 12 24.00
4 1,620 95 9 17.05
5 1,080 94 7 11.49
6 1,980 87 11 22.76
7 1,440 86 8 16.74
8 1,620 87 10 18.62
9 720 85 3 8.47
10 1,980 93 11 21.29
11 1,260 93 7 13.55
12 1,080 97 6 11.13
13 1,800 93 10 19.35
14 1,440 89 8 16.18
15 1,800 99 9 18.18
16 1,800 95 9 18.95
17 1,620 43 19 37.67
18 900 14 47 64.29
19 900 13 43 69.23
SPEED, FLOW, AND DENSITY RELATIONSHIP

Correlations: Q, U, K

Q U
U 0.133 Best
0.180 Negative
Correlation!!!

K 0.119 -0.921
0.228 0.000

Cell Contents: Pearson correlation

P-Value
SPEED, FLOW, AND DENSITY RELATIONSHIP

q u k

q 1.00
Best
Negative
u 0.13 1.00 Correlation!!!

k 0.12 -0.92 1.00

 Regression Analysis
Regression Analysis: U versus K
Significant !!!

The regression equation is

U = 105 - 1.42 K

Predictor Coef SE Coef T P

Constant 104.782 1.914 54.75 0.000
K -1.42380 0.05947 -23.94 0.000

S = 9.833 R-Sq = 84.9% R-Sq(adj) = 84.7%

Analysis of Variance

Source DF SS MS F P
Regression 1 55422 55422 573.17 0.000
Residual Error 102 9863 97
Total 103 65285
 120

100

y = -1.4238x + 104.78
80 2
Speed (km/hr

R = 0.8489

60

40

20

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

Density (veh/km)
SPEED, FLOW, AND DENSITY RELATIONSHIP

• A = 104,78
• B = -1,4238

• u = A + Bk  104,78 - 1,4238k
• q = Ak – Bk2  104,78k + 1,4238k2
• q = [u x (A-u)]/ B
 [u x (104,78 – u)] / 1,4238
 SPEED VS DENSITY
80

70

60
u = 104,78 – 1,4238k
Speed (km/hr)

50

40

30

20

10

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120

Density (veh/km)
 FLOW VS DENSITY
2,500

q = 104,78k + 1,4238k2
2,000
Flow (veh/km)

1,500

1,000

500

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

Density (veh/km)
 SPEED VS FLOW
120

q = [u x (104,78-u)] / 1,4238
100

80
Speed (km/hr)

60

40

20

0
0 250 500 750 1,000 1,250 1,500 1,750 2,000 2,250 2,500

Flow (veh/hr)
 SPEED VS DENSITY
80

70

60
u = 104,78 – 1,4238k
Speed (km/hr)

50

40

30

20

10

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120

Density (veh/km)
 FLOW VS DENSITY
2,500

q = 104,78k + 1,4238k2
2,000
Flow (veh/km)

1,500

1,000

500

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

Density (veh/km)
 SPEED VS FLOW
120

q = [u x (104,78-u)] / 1,4238
100

80
Speed (km/hr)

60

40

20

0
0 250 500 750 1,000 1,250 1,500 1,750 2,000 2,250 2,500

Flow (veh/hr)