Traffic Volume

Traffic volume includes all the commodities shipped in and out, and the freights
loading and unloading along the design line.

From: Principles of Railway Location and Design, 2018

Related terms:

Energy Engineering, Traction, Railway, Asphalt Pavements, Intersections, Locomo-

tives, Axle Load

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China
Keshuang Tang, ... Dongbo Liu, in Global Practices on Road Traffic Signal Control,
2019

11.6 Determination of design traffic volumes

The design traffic volume needs to be determined for each TOD plan. This should
be the hourly traffic volume that is converted from the peak 15-min flow rate, based
on the recommended method in the highway capacity mannual (HCM) 2010. In a
case where the peak 15-minute flow rate is not used, peak hour factors of 0.75 for
the major approaches and 0.80 for the minor approaches are recommended in the
national standard. The design traffic volume of motor vehicles is measured by the
passenger car unit (pcu). Seven vehicle types, that is, passenger car, motor cycle, van
(>7 seats), minivan, heavy truck, bus, and tram, are considered in the determination
of design traffic volume. The equivalent factor for each vehicle type is presented in
Table 11.2.

Table 11.2. Equivalent factor of different types of vehicles (pcu)

Passenger Motorcycle Van (>7 Minivan Heavy truck Bus Tram

car seats)
1.0 0.5 1.2 2.0 3.0 3.0 3.5–6.0
In addition, nonmotor vehicle and pedestrian volumes should be observed for each
direction, and special attention should be given to left-turn nonmotor vehicles.

> Read full chapter

Traffic Operations
Bastian J. Schroeder PhD, PE, in Highway Engineering, 2016

Step 3: Determine Lane Group Traffic Data

The traffic volumes shown in Figure 5.63 first need to converted into peak 15-min
flow rates by dividing them by the peak hour factor (and typically a heavy vehicle
adjustment factor and driver population adjustment factor, which do not apply in
this example). These flow rates are then assigned to the different lane groups. For
the through traffic on the eastbound and westbound approaches, it is assumed that
55% of through traffic chooses the exclusive lane, with 45% in the shared lane. In
the absence of field data, this type of assumption has to be made by the analyst. A
good reasonableness check in this volume split is to assure similar v/s ratios for both
lane groups, which does hold true in this example.

The lane group flow rates are then divided by the saturation flow rate of each
lane group to give the v/s (volume to saturation flow) ratio for the lane group.
Conceptually, the v/s ratio describes the fraction of an hour worth of green time
needed to serve the demand of the particular lane group given its saturation flow
rate (capacity). In this example, exclusive through lanes have an assumed saturation
flow rate of 1900 passenger cars/h per lane; shared lanes a rate of 1800 passenger
cars/h per lane; and exclusive left-turn lanes a rate of 1700 passenger cars/h per
lane. The saturation flow rates can also be field measured or be calculated using the
appropriate HCM equation. This entire process is illustrated in Tables 5.44 and 5.45.

Table 5.44. Lane group traffic data for signal timing example—traffic volumes

Traffic volumes
NB SB EB WB
L T R L T R L T R L T R
De- 150 300 50 150 350 50 300 900 50 200 550 50
mand
De- 158 316 53 158 389 53 310 947 53 211 579 53
mand/PHF

**Assume 55/45 split for through across exclusive/shared lanes**

Table 5.45. Lane group traffic data for signal timing example—lane group volumes
Lane group volumes
NB1 NB2 SB1 SB2 EB1 EB2 EB3 WB1 WB2 WB3
De- 158 369 158 442 316 521 479 211 318 314
mand/PHF
SAT./Flow1700 1900 1700 1,900 1700 1900 1800 1700 1900 1800
V/S 0.09 0.19 0.09 0.23 0.19 0.27 0.27 0.12 0.17 0.17

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Preliminaries
Kumar Molugaram, G. Shanker Rao, in Statistical Techniques for Transportation
Engineering, 2017

2.7.6 Statistical Applications to Transportation Engineering

We know that each distribution has expected value. Which is known as the mean
of the distribution. Mean of the distribution is an exact number. Estimate of this
number is given by (which is not true mean).

The most common distributions have one or two parameters (fixed quantities or
numbers) that define the exact shape of the distribution. One parameter sets mean
and the other sets the spread. The variance is the second moment about the measure
of central tendency [i.e., mean or center of gravity]. The most common estimator of
for the variance is given by [unbiased estimator of the variance].

For very large samples yields μ, the true mean.

S2 yields , the true variance

The square root of variance is called standard deviation (SD), variance and SD are
common measures of the spread of distribution.

Distribution of hourly traffic volume, on a proposed highway to find hourly volume

to be used for the design.

1. Average Travel Time and Average Travel Speed: Speed is a principal parameter
describing the state of a given traffic stream. It is defined as the rate of
motion, in distance per unit time. It is given bywhere S=Speed in mph or
fps; d=distance traversed in miles or ft; t=time to traverse the distance d.The
average or mean speed can be computed in two different ways.Mathematically,
the time mean speed is an average of the individual vehicle speeds and the
Space mean speed is the HM of the individual speeds.Annual Average Daily
Traffic (AADT): Traffic data on all traffic volume maps is represented as AADT, a
theoretical estimate of the total number of vehicles using a specific segment of 2.
roadway (in both directions) on any given day of the year.AADT estimates are
subject to many sources of variability. Therefore it is suggested that historical
AADT’s be referenced in addition to the most currently available information.
Construction effects are unavoidable when collecting traffic data. If possible,
traffic counts are scheduled before a project starts or after it is completed.
It is important to remember that construction affects traffic patterns on the
entire road network, another reason why it is valuable to reference historical
traffic volumes.AADT is defined as the average 24 hour traffic volume at a
given location over a full 365 days/year.Average daily traffic (ADT) is the average
24 hour traffic volume at a given location for some period of time less than a
year (6 months or a season, a month or, a week or some days).
Time Mean Speed (TMS): TMS is the average speed of all vehicles passing a point3.
on a highway over some specified time period.It can also be defined as the
AM of the speeds of vehicles passing a point on a highway during an interval
of time.It is computed by using the formula:where TMS=Time mean speed,
d=distance traversed, n=number of travel times observed, and t1=travel time
of ith vehicle.
Space Mean Speed (SMS): SMS is defined as the average speed of all vehicles
occupying a given section of a highway over some specified time period.

It is the HM of the speeds of vehicles passing a point on a highway during an interval

of time. It is computed by the formula:

The time mean speed is always higher than the Space mean speed.

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Japan
Hideki Nakamura, ... Takashi Oguchi, in Global Practices on Road Traffic Signal
Control, 2019

10.2.4.1 Traffic indicator used for program selection control

(traffic responsive control)
Either the weighted sum of traffic volume and time occupancy S1 shown in Eq. (10.1),
or the larger value obtained by normalizing the traffic volume and time occupancy
with the reference values S2 shown in Eq. (10.2), is used for the program selection
control.
(10.1)

(10.2)

where Q=measured traffic volume; Q'=reference traffic volume (constant); O=mea-

sured time occupancy; O'=reference time occupancy (constant); and , =constant.

These indicators consider the characteristic that the time occupancy increases as the
queue expands to the vicinity of the vehicle detector position, which is set upstream
of the queue length that can be handled in one signal cycle.

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Railway Transport Capacity and Con-

struction Standards
Sirong Yi, in Principles of Railway Location and Design, 2018

1.1.2.4 Computation and Forecasting of Passenger Traffic

Generally, the proportion of through passenger traffic volume is not very large.
Typical passenger flow investigation can be applied to find out the ratio of through
traffic volume and local traffic volume in order to estimate through traffic volume
by local traffic volume.

Local passenger traffic volume is related with the total population, the proportion of
workers and miners, per capita income, number of migration factory, early settlers,
as well as scenic spots in the attracting scope.

With the summary of the passenger traffic, the number of passenger trains can be
estimated by the capacity of each train, or by taking the existing line with the similar
conditions as a reference to proposed the passenger train number of design line.

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Introduction
Daniel J. Findley PhD, PE, in Highway Engineering, 2016

1.4.2 Signalized Intersections

For intersections with elevated traffic volumes, traffic signals are commonly used to
control the interaction and order of movements from different approaches. The traf-
fic signal, and its alternating red-yellow-green indication to conflicting approaches,
controls which movement is allowed in what order. An example of a signalized
intersection is shown in Figure 1.11.

Figure 1.11. Signalized intersection.

Signalized intersections come in a wide range of sizes and configurations, and the
study of different control and timing strategies consumes entire books and manuals.
The study of signalized intersections includes a range of topics, including estimating
the capacity of each approach, optimizing the signal timing for an intersection to
balance the needs of different phases, optimizing the signal timing in the context of
a corridor to coordinate movements from one intersection to the next, and a host
of topics including location and configuration of signal displays themselves.

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Strengthening of the Railway Transport

Capacity
Sirong Yi, in Principles of Railway Location and Design, 2018

7.1.5.3 Diagram of Equipment-To-Traffic-Capacity

In addition to the required traffic volume during its adoption period, certain ex-
tra capacity shall also be provided by every selected enhancement measure. The
extra capacity shall not be too high, so that early stage investment can be saved.
Meanwhile, the enhancement measures of each stage shall be capable of fitting the
volume growth for around 5 years, to avoid railway under frequent reconstruction
and influencing normal operation.

During the selection of an enhancement measure, a diagram of strengthen mea-

sures with traffic capacity shall be drawn, so that the most appropriate measure can
be selected after determining the applicable period of each enhancement measure,
studying the feasibility and rationality of their staged application and analyzing their
economic effects. A diagram of equipment-to-traffic capacity (see Fig. 7.11) consists
of two groups of curves. The first group consists of only one curve which represents
the traffic capacity growth of each existing line in each design year. The curve is
drawn on the basis of annual freight traffic volume that is obtained from volume
prediction, and it rises with the annual increase of freight traffic volume. The second
group consists of several curves which represent the expected transport capacity of
the line after each enhancement measure is implemented. With the annual growth
of passengers train, less-than-carload freight train and pick-up and drop freight
train on existing lines, the through transport capacity decreases correspondingly.
Therefore, for a same enhancement measure, a downward trend is seen on the
transport capacity after its implementation. The intersection points of these two
groups of curves represent the years that an enhancement measure is capable of
fitting the required volume. The shaded areas represent the capacity of the line in
extra traffic volume; such capacity is also called the reserved capacity.

Fig. 7.11. Diagram of equipment-to-traffic capacity.

The reconstruction time in each staged enhancement measure shall be scheduled

prior to the saturation year of the railway carrying capacity, so as to mitigate the
mutual interference of construction and operation and reduce the cost of construc-
tion interference. The time of reconstruction shall be determined according to the
difficulty level of the reconstruction project and the speed of traffic volume growth,
so as to ensure the delivery of construction project before capacity saturation. It is
generally recommended to carry out construction when the capacity utilization ratio
of the line reaches 75%–85%, the capacity utilization ratio between the station and
the arrival-departure track reaches around 80% and the resorting capacity utilization
ratio of marshaling station reaches 85%–90%.

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Optical performance monitoring of op-

tical phase–modulated signals
Bartłomiej Kozicki, in Optical Performance Monitoring, 2010

12.1 Introduction
The continuing growth of the traffic volume generated by broadband Internet
connections, distributed storage services, or cloud/grid computing is placing a rising
demand on network operators to provide increasing amounts of bandwidth. This
is expected to occur without significant changes in pricing of the services, which
forces network operators to look for novel solutions in the field of optical transport
networks. In order to take advantage of the available resources efficiently, the
envisaged transparent optical network will accommodate dense wavelength-divi-
sion-multiplexed (DWDM), high–bit rate channels.1 Consequently, the currently
dominating on-off keying (OOK) modulation formats will pose a challenge due
to limited tolerance toward chromatic dispersion (CD) and nonlinear distortions,
as well as relatively low receiver sensitivity, which constrict the network design
to a small number of transparent nodes.2 The solution lies in the adaptation of
advanced modulation formats that, in the context of optical modulation, relate to all
formats beyond binary intensity modulation.3 Advances in high-speed transponder
electronics techniques such as controlled signal predistortion, maximum-likelihood
sequence estimation (MLSE), and forward error correction (FEC) made increases in
bit rates of individual channels possible.3–5 More importantly, the introduction of
binary and multilevel phase modulation gave the opportunity to develop formats
with high spectral efficiency (SE) and receiver sensitivity.6

As a result, a number of modulation formats have been introduced to the opti-

cal communication systems. In particular, phase-modulation formats have gained
renewed interest in optical domain in the context of differential encoding and
balanced detection.7,8 The return-to-zero differential phase-shift keying (RZ-DPSK)
modulation provides an approximately 3-dB receiver sensitivity advantage when
compared to RZ-OOK, as shown in Figure 12.1(a). It has been reported that the DPSK
modulation formats can tolerate larger amounts of polarization mode dispersion
(PMD) than OOK systems in both compensated and uncompensated systems.9 The
RZ-DPSK format provides resilience to narrow optical filtering8 and crossphase
modulation (XPM) both in fiber10,11 and in semiconductor optical amplifiers.12
Spectral efficiency of 0.4 bit/s/Hz in the RZ-DPSK format can be further en-
hanced by alternate phase modulation of intense RZ pulses, thereby forming the
carrier-suppressed RZ-DPSK (CSRZ-DPSK) format.13 The CSRZ-DPSK format has
been shown to allow transmission with SE of up to 0.8 bit/s/Hz.14,15 Similarly,
high SE has been achieved with multilevel phase modulation. The return-to-zero,
differential quadrature phase-shift keying (RZ-DQPSK) signal occupies only 50% of
the bandwidth of an RZ-DPSK signal at the same bit rate.16 The DQPSK format has
also been shown to provide better linear performance than other quaternary for-
mats, such as differential phase-amplitude-shift keying (DPASK).17,18 This is achieved
through encoding 2 bits in four phase states of one symbol. The format relaxes
the requirement for high-speed modulator electronics, the compressed spectrum
ensures resilience to CD, and the longer symbol duration compared to the binary
modulation makes DQPSK more robust to PMD. In conjunction with polarization
multiplexing (PolMux), the RZ-DQPSK format can achieve SE of up to 1.6 bit/s/Hz.6
The multilevel encoding of RZ-DQPSK results in an approximately 1-dB receiver
sensitivity penalty when compared to the RZ-DPSK format.19 Nevertheless, the high
SE of the RZ-DQPSK and the receiver sensitivity advantage of the RZ-DPSK make
these formats an attractive solution for transparent transmission.

Figure 12.1. (a) Comparison of required OSNR between DPSK and OOK formats. (b)
Comparison of nonlinear tolerance between RZ-DPSK and RZ-OOK formats.6,7

Multilevel modulation formats exceeding four levels have also been explored both
in simulation and experiment. Formats like ASK-DPSK, 8DPSK, 16-quadrature am-
plitude modulation (16-QAM), and 64-QAM promise even higher SE. However, the
increase in the number of bits per symbol results in a reduction of the distance
between the signal points in the constellation map, which in turn causes degradation
of receiver sensitivity, as well as increases the impact of CD and PMD.20–22

> Read full chapter

Highway bridges
B.T. Martin, in Innovative Bridge Design Handbook, 2016

3.1.4 Wooden beams

Most often used for secondary roads where truck traffic volume is low, wooden beam
bridges remain a primary bridge type for rural locations. The bridges are used for
spans up to 15 m and usually have a wood pile substructure. With the exception of
elements coming in direct contact with pedestrians the components of the bridge
are chemically treated for preservation. Main members are usually pre-cut and
drilled prior to chemical treatment and installation. The bridge can accommodate a
spiked wooden deck, concrete deck, or a combination of wood planking and asphalt.
Because of the propensity of the bents and abutments to catch debris when over
water, the substructure units are built parallel to the stream. These bridges can be
visually appealing in the right environment though it doesn’t lend itself to urban
environments.

> Read full chapter

Network Flow Models

Deep Medhi, Karthik Ramasamy, in Network Routing (Second Edition), 2018

4.7 Generating Traffic Matrix

In this chapter, we generically refer to the traffic volume on a demand pair as .
Traffic volumes, , are collectively known as a traffic matrix. Where possible, you want
to use a traffic matrix derived from actual network measurements. However, such
measured data may not always be accessible to researchers. Thus, you have to resort
to generating your own traffic matrix. For a simple study to understand flows, we
can use a fixed value for traffic for each k (“fixed traffic"), or use a quantity generated
from a uniform distribution for each (“uniform traffic"). Another idea for using in
a study was proposed in [284]. For a demand identifier k connecting an origin and
a destination , the traffic demand is given by
 (4.7.1)

Here, and are randomly generated in the interval for each node i. The idea is to
incorporate the activeness of a node whether it is the origin or the destination. is
another random number in the interval for each pair of nodes s and d. In [284],
it was suggested to use 0.6 for in order to avoid the majority of the links in the
optimal solution to be overloaded. is the Euclidean distance between nodes s and
d; this may be substituted by the shortest path distance between s and d. Finally, Δ
is the largest distance in the network.

In real networks, what does the traffic matrix look like? There is not much informa-
tion publicly available. In [630], it was reported that traffic between two node pairs
follows a lognormal distribution based on traffic matrices they studied from the
real-world data. Just as a reminder, a random variable is log-normally distributed if
the logarithm of x is normally distributed, i.e.,

(4.7.2)

where μ and are the mean and the standard deviation of the distribution,
respectively. Through their study [630], the authors suggested using the following
values, , for generating lognormal traffic.

How do we generate traffic volume based on the lognormal distribution? If you are
using a package such as MATLAB, it is then very easy. Simply, use the following
command to

where mu is the mean, sigma is the standard deviation of the distribution, and R
is the returned value from the distribution. You will need to repeat this for as many
demand pairs you wish to generate the data for.

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