CED401

Traffic Engineering and Management

Lecture-12
Dr. Leeza Malik
Assistant Professor
Department of Civil Engineering
IIT(ISM) Dhanbad
28-08-2023
Summary of last lecture
• Analysis of spot speed data
• Frequency Distribution curve
• Cumulative Distribution Curve
• 15th percentile, 85th percentile and 98th percentile speed
• Mean Speed, Mode, Median
Running and Journey Speeds

• Travel-time studies involve significant lengths of a facility or group of facilities forming a

route.
• Running Speed: Average speed maintained by a vehicle over a given length while the
vehicle is in motion. It excludes stopped delay time
𝐿𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑡ℎ 𝑜𝑓 𝑇𝑟𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑙
• 𝑅𝑢𝑛𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑆𝑝𝑒𝑒𝑑 =
𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝐽𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑛𝑒𝑦 𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒−𝐷𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑦𝑠
• Running speed used for road condition studies.
• Journey Speed: Effective speed of a vehicle between two points including all delays
incurred en-route
𝐿𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑡ℎ 𝑜𝑓 𝑇𝑟𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑙
• 𝐽𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑛𝑒𝑦 𝑆𝑝𝑒𝑒𝑑 =
𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝐽𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑛𝑒𝑦 𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒
• Journey speed used in identifying the problem locations on facilities, arterial roads level
of service, traffic assignment , economic evaluation of transportation improvements etc.

3
 Methods of measuring journey speed
• Significant lengths of roadway are involved: Difficult to remotely observe vehicles as they progress through the
study section
• Driving test cars through the study section while an observer records elapsed times through the section and at
key intermediate points within the section.
• Some basic techniques are:
• Floating-car technique: Test-car driver is asked to pass as many vehicles as pass the test car. In this way, the
vehicle’s relative position in the traffic stream remains unchanged, and the test car approximates the
behaviour of an average vehicle in the traffic stream.
• Applied on two-lane highway
• Average-car technique: The driver is instructed to drive at the approximate average speed of the traffic
stream.
• Multi-lane facility
• Maximum-car technique: The driver is asked to drive as fast as is safely practical in the traffic stream without
ever exceeding the design speed of the facility.
• Represent the lower range of the distribution of travel times.
• License Plate Number Method
• The detail of delay information at intermediate points is lost with this technique
• Direct Observation
• Equip the test vehicle with one of several devices that plots speed against distance as the vehicle travels
through the test section. 4
 Computation of journey speed using floating
car/ average car technique
• Average journey time in specified 𝑡𝑤 = Measured journey time for
direction with flow ‘q’ specified direction
𝑦(𝑡𝑎 +𝑡𝑤 ) 𝑡𝑎 = Measured journey time for
• 𝑡 = 𝑡𝑤 −
𝑥+𝑦 opposite direction
• Average journey speed 𝑦 = Number of vehicles
•𝑣=
𝑙 overtaking the test car minus the
𝑡 number overtaken by the test car
𝑥+𝑦
• 𝐹𝑙𝑜𝑤 𝑞 = 𝑥 = Number of vehicles in
(𝑡𝑎 +𝑡𝑤 )
specified direction when the test
vehicle was travelling in opposite
direction
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Thank You and Questions?