Assignment #03

Problems
1. Determine your average walking speed. Compare your results with that of the suggested
walking speed in the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices. Is there a difference?
Which value is more conservative and why?
2. Describe the three types of vehicle characteristics.
3. A driver with a perception-reaction time of 2.5 sec is driving at 90 mi/h when he observes
that an accident has blocked the road ahead. Calculate the distance the vehicle would
move before the driver could activate the brakes.
4. The design speed of a multilane highway is 60 mi/h. What is the minimum stopping sight
distance that should be provided on the road if (a) the road is level and (b) the road has a
maximum grade of 4%? Assume the perception-reaction time = 2.5 sec.
5. The acceleration of a vehicle takes the form where u is the vehicle speed in ft /sec. The
vehicle is traveling at 45 ft /sec at time To.
6. Determine the horsepower developed by a passenger car traveling at a speed of 60 mph
on an upgrade of 4% with a smooth pavement. The weight of the car is 4500 lb and the
cross-sectional area of the car is 45 ft2.
7. Repeat Problem 6 for a 24,000-lb truck with a cross-sectional area of 100 ft2 and
coefficient of drag of 0.5 traveling at 50 mi/h.
8. What is the distance required to stop an average passenger car when brakes are applied
on a 2% downgrade if that vehicle was originally traveling at 40 mi/h?
9. A driver on a level two-lane highway observes a truck completely blocking the highway.
The driver was able to stop her vehicle only 20 ft from the truck. If the driver was driving
at 60 mi/h, how far was she from the truck when she first observed it?
10. What are the advantages and disadvantages of machine vision (video image detection)
when compared with other forms of detection?
11. Define the following terms and cite examples of how they are used.
a. Average annual daily traffic (AADT)
b. Average daily traffic (ADT)
c. Vehicle-miles of travel (VMT)
d. Peak hour volume (PHV)
12. A motorist traveling at 65 mi/h down a grade of 6% on a highway observes a crash ahead
of him, involving an overturned truck that is completely blocking the road.
13.