HIGHWAY AND RAILROAD ENGINEERING

Traffic Engineering: Traffic Characteristics

PA – 10

Instruction:
- File name (SURNAME_CLASSCODE_PA#)
- Submit the file clearly and in pdf format
- Set page margins to 1 inch on all sides

Answer the following:

1. Speed data collected on an urban roadway yielded a standard deviation in
speeds of 4.8 mi/h.

a. If an engineer wishes to estimate the average speed on the roadway at

a 95% confidence level so that the estimate is within 2 mi/h of the true
average, how many spot speeds should be collected?

b. If the estimate of the average must be within 1 mi/h, what should the
sample size be?
2. An engineer wishing to obtain the speed characteristics on a bypass around
her city at a confidence level of 95%, and an acceptable limit of 1.0 mi/h
collected a total of 130 spot speed samples and determined that the variance
is 25 (mi/h)². Has the engineer met with all of the requirements of the study?

3. Given the spot speed of 60 vehicles on a certain traffic section. Use 20 classes.
Determine:
a. The arithmetic mean speed
b. The standard deviation
c. The median speed
d. The mode or modal speed
e. The 85th-percentile speed
Car Speed Car Speed Car Speed Car Speed
No. (kph) No. (kph) No. (kph) No. (kph)
1 67 16 63 31 49 46 57
2 72 17 62 32 58 47 68
3 80 18 65 33 74 48 61
4 66 19 68 34 82 49 74
5 65 20 67 35 81 50 72
6 51 21 66 36 74 51 67
7 52 22 69 37 78 52 74
8 50 23 78 38 80 53 81
9 53 24 80 39 65 54 75
10 55 25 75 40 74 55 73
11 54 26 64 41 65 56 62
12 56 27 69 42 82 57 63
13 59 28 66 43 59 58 71
14 60 29 65 44 52 59 78
15 58 30 67 45 64 60 77

SPEED Class Class Percentage Cumulative

Midvalue,𝑢𝑖 Frequency
CLASS(Kph) 𝑓𝑖 𝑢𝑖 of percentage
(Class 𝑓(𝑢𝑖 − 𝑢̅)2
Observation), observation of all
𝑓𝑖
in class observation
49-50.65 50 2 100 3.33 3.33 350.0658
51-52.65 52 3 156 5 8.33 378.3387
53-54.65 54 2 108 3.33 11.66 170.3858
55-56.65 56 2 112 3.33 14.99 104.5458
57-58.65 58 3 174 5 19.99 82.0587
59-60.65 60 3 180 5 24.99 31.2987
61-62.65 62 3 186 5 29.99 4.5387
63-64.65 64 4 256 6.66 36.66 2.3716
65-66.65 66 8 528 13.33 49.99 61.3832
67-68.65 68 6 408 10 59.99 136.5174
69-70.65 70 2 140 3.33 63.33 91.6658
71-72.65 72 3 216 5 68.33 230.7387
73-74.65 74 6 444 10 78.33 695.9574
75-76.65 76 2 152 3.33 81.67 326.1458
77-78.65 78 4 312 6.66 88.34 872.6116
79-80.65 80 3 240 5 93.34 843.6987
81-82.65 82 4 82 6.66 100 1409.2516
 60 3794 100 5791.574

SOLUTION:
 a. The median speed
b. The mode or modal speed
c. The 85th-percentile speed

MEDIAN SPEED = 66 Kph

The mode or modal speed = 63 Kph
85th-percentile speed= 77 Kph