Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
PGRPE-2010
2011
P age |2
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report is a result of the findings by the authors regarding the speeds and delays
encountered by the vehicles plying on NH-2, also called Mathura Road. This work
was undertaken as a field assignment in conjunction with authors’ ongoing class
room training as a part of their course work for the degree of Masters of Technology.
The section considered for study includes the stretch between Ashram intersection
and the intersection just in front of CRRI in both the directions. In order to accurately
reflect the traffic conditions at all times of day, speed and delay study was conducted
on 25th February, 2011 for off-peak hours from around 11 am to 1 pm and on 3rd
March, 2011 for peak hours starting from around 8.15 am to 9.30 am. The method
adopted for the study was the Floating Car Method as it was considered to be the
most convenient and comprehensive method for this purpose.
The first chapter in the report deals with general introduction about the survey
philosophy and techniques thereof.
The results of the study have been represented in both tabular and graphical form
and have been extensively analysed, with the discussions included in the second
chapter.
INTRODUCTION
With the rapid increase in population, urbanization and income levels in India, the
number of motor vehicles on the Indian roads is drastically increasing with every
passing day. Alas, the same cannot be said about the roads that are required to
carry these vehicles!
A look at the data provides the insight required to appreciate the problem.
It can be seen from the above table 1, the concentration of automobiles (22 percent)
is in eight urban areas. Delhi is having total registered vehicles of more than 3.5
million (2002) with the predominance of two wheelers and cars, used as private
passenger vehicles.
The corresponding traffic volumes plying on the roads of Delhi have also seen a
humongous increase as can be seen from the following table 1.
But the statistics available about the roads in Delhi carrying such high volumes of
traffic cannot be called very encouraging. The following table 2 makes this
discrepancy clear.
Thus while there is a marginal increase in the road length per 100 sq.Km., there has
been a steady decline noticeable in available road length per 1000 population as well
vehicles.
A direct effect of such a discrepancy is the increase in travel time due to delays
caused by congestion, long queues of vehicles at intersections and such reasons
which also cause significant reduction in the travel speeds of the vehicles. This
impacts the Level of Service of a road as well as the Road User Cost.
The delay or the time lost by traffic during the travel period may be either due to fixed
delays or operational delays. Fixed delays occur primarily at intersections due to
traffic signals and at level crossings of railways. Operational delays are caused by
the interference of traffic movements such as turning vehicles, parking and vehicles
joining the traffic stream after parking, pedestrians etc. and also due to high traffic
volume, inadequate capacity of the road and accidents. Therefore the overall journey
speed between the origin and destination of travel is always lower than the desired
running speed.
METHODS OF STUDY
There are various methods of carrying out speed and delay study, namely;
In floating car method, a test vehicle is driven over a given course of travel at
approximately the average speed of the stream, thus trying to float with the traffic
stream. A number of test runs are made along the study stretch and a group of
observers record the various details. Two observers are required with two stop
watches. One of the stop watches is continuously operated and is required to find
out the travel time between two nodes or control points along the stretch. These
control points are fixed beforehand and include any fixed point such as intersections,
bridges etc. The other stop watch is used to find the duration of individual delays.
One of the observers, records the duration, location and cause of these delays as
well as the overall travel time between two nodes either on suitable tabular forms or
by voice recording instruments.
In the interview technique, work can be completed within a very short span of time
by interviewing and collecting details from the road users on the spot. However, the
data collected may not provide accurate details.
Elevated observations and photographic techniques are useful for studying short
test sections like intersections etc.
The section considered for study is the one between Ashram intersection and CRRI
intersection. Since it is a dual carriageway, thus both the directions of travel were
considered. The total length of the test section is 2.83 Km.
METHOD OF STUDY
The method adopted for study was floating car method. From the discussion in
previous chapter it can be seen that this method has a distinct advantage over other
methods is that it is most suitable for long test sections and can provide details about
the individual delays occurring within the test section.
For the purpose of survey, the test section was divided into four sub-sections with
their boundaries clearly defined by five control points or nodes fixed along the route.
Thereafter, the nodal distances i.e. the lengths of the sub-sections were measured
using a measuring wheel. These sub-sections, nodes and the corresponding nodal
distances are listed in the table below:-
These nodes are also pictorially represented below for better understanding of their
locations:-
1 2 3 4 5
CRRI GATE
It has been generally seen that on Mathura Road the morning peak hour of traffic
starts around 8:15 am and continues up to around 10:00 am. This is followed by an
intermediate peak hour which starts around 12:30 pm and continues up to around
2:30 pm after which the evening peak hour starts around 5:15 pm and continues up
to 7:30 to 8:00 pm and sometimes even later. These peak hours are separated in
between by certain off-peak hours marked by lean flow values of traffic.
The objective of this study was to have the speed and delay values on Mathura
Road for the morning peak hour and the following off-peak hour. Since, due to
limitation of man-power, the studies for both the periods were not possible on a
single day. Hence the complete study was conveniently divided into two phases. In
phase 1, off-peak hour speed and delay survey of the section was to be conducted
from around 11 am to be continued till around 1 pm when the intermediate peak flow
starts building up. The phase 2 was to include the peak hour survey to be conducted
between around 8:15 am and 10:00 am.
The dates decided for the phases 1 and 2 of the survey were 25 th February, 2011
and 3rd March, 2011 respectively.
OBSERVATIONS
An example of the survey sheet prepared and used for recording the observations is
attached with this report.
An important precaution taken while conducting the survey was to ensure that the
vehicle was actually ‘floating’ with the traffic. The problem arose because as seen in
the map below (the callout with 1 written in it), the node 1 i.e. the traffic signal post in
front of CRRI and the gap in median for taking the turn are just at the opening of the
main gate of CRRI.
Because of this, whenever the signal turned green allowing the vehicles standing
and waiting at the main gate to take the right turn and come on to the highway, it was
the red phase for the straight movement. Thus in effect the survey vehicle would get
ahead of the traffic stooped at the signal which allowed the vehicle to be driven at
any desired speed and hence it would not be able to mimic the speed of the traffic
stream. Similar problem was present at the other end of the section at Ashram
intersection. There a U-turn taken in order to perform the return trip towards CRRI
would put the vehicle again ahead of the traffic.
In order to negate this, the lengths of the run were increased and the intersections
next to the end-intersections considered were decided to be utilized for taking the U-
turns. Thus the trip ends were actually shifted to Apollo and Bhogal intersections
respectively instead of CRRI and Ashram, though the observations were begun to be
recorded only when the observer physically crossed the designated nodes. This
would put the vehicle in the stream of vehicles and hence it would better be able to
mimic the characteristics of the stream.
After observing the readings, they were fed into computer and analyzed with the help
of MS Excel. A filled excel observation sheet has also been attached with the report.
PEAK HOUR
Avg.
Avg. Journey Total
Running
Time of Day Travel Time (s) Speed Delay
Speed
(kmph) (s)
(kmph)
8:20 AM 759.99 13.4 19.2 229.6
8:53 AM 861.89 11.8 17.7 287.2
9:31 AM 587.89 17.3 25.4 186.5
Avg.
Avg. Journey Total
Running
Time of Day Travel Time (s) Speed Delay
Speed
(kmph) (s)
(kmph)
8:15 AM 288.17 35.4 39.3 28.9
8:43 AM 325.24 31.4 41.6 80.2
9:20 AM 334.83 30.5 42.0 92.3
Basic Statistics:
Travel Time (s) Avg. Journey Avg. Running Total Delay (s)
Speed (kmph) Speed (kmph)
Travel Time (s) Avg. Journey Avg. Running Total Delay (s)
Speed (kmph) Speed (kmph)
30.0
25.0 Average
Running Speed
Speed (kmph)
20.0
15.0
0.0
8:09 AM 8:24 AM 8:38 AM 8:52 AM 9:07 AM 9:21 AM 9:36 AM
1000.0
900.0
800.0
Travel Time
700.0
600.0
Delay (s)
500.0
400.0
300.0
Total Delay
200.0
100.0
0.0
8:09 AM 8:24 AM 8:38 AM 8:52 AM 9:07 AM 9:21 AM 9:36 AM
45.0
40.0 Average
Running Speed
Speed (kmph)
35.0
30.0
Average Journey
Speed
25.0
20.0
8:09 AM 8:38 AM 9:07 AM 9:36 AM
400.0
350.0
250.0
200.0
150.0
Total Delay
100.0
50.0
0.0
8:09 AM 8:24 AM 8:38 AM 8:52 AM 9:07 AM 9:21 AM 9:36 AM
The inferences that can be drawn from the above results are as below:
The morning peak hour volume of traffic starts building sometime around 8:30
am in both the directions. The paucity of data points renders prediction about
the end of peak hour inconclusive.
The average travel time during the peak hour in D1 direction is 12 mins 40
secs while that in D2 direction is just 5 mins 25 secs (median values). This
indicates that the congestion is more in the D1 direction as compared to D2.
There are large differences in the deviations about means in values of travel
times in both the directions. The standard deviation for D1 direction (138.5
secs) is 82% larger than that in D2 direction (24.6 secs).
In the direction D1, the average journey and running speeds follow similar
distribution and an increase in total delay causes decrease in both the
speeds. However, the trend is very different in the other direction D2. Here an
increase in delay causes a decrease in the journey speed but the running
speeds can be found to be increasing. This is because the vehicles tend to
accelerate between two consecutive points of delay (mainly the mid-block
sections between a consecutive pair of intersections) in order to make up for
the increase in travel time occurring due to delay.
The average journey speed (median value 13.42 kmph) and correspondingly
the average running speed (median value 19.22 kmph) in D1 direction are
very low when compared to the allowable speed of 60 kmph for cars on the
section during peak hour.
The average journey speed (median value 31.35 kmph) and the average
running speed (median value 41.61 kmph) in D2 direction are still lower when
compared to the allowable speed of 60 kmph for cars on the section during
peak hour but significantly better than the other direction.
The journey and running speeds in D1 direction are respectively 57% and
54% lower than the journey and running speeds in D2 direction, when the
median values are compared.
The total delays from Ashram towards CRRI are 65% larger than that in the
opposite direction, when the median values are compared.
There are larger variations in the average running speeds in the direction D1
(SD 4.06 kmph) when compared to those in D2 direction (SD 1.46 kmph).
The above three points corroborate the fact that congestion as experienced in
the D1 direction is much severe when compared to the other direction. This
may be the result of higher traffic volumes and more turning movements
associated with this particular direction.
The bottleneck portions identified in both the directions with respective major
causes of delay are given in the table below:
OFF-PEAK HOUR
Direction of
CRRI to Ashram (D2)
Travel:
Basic Statistics:
35.0
30.0
Average
25.0
Running Speed
20.0
Speed (kmph)
5.0
0.0
10:48 AM 11:02 AM 11:16 AM 11:31 AM 11:45 AM 12:00 PM 12:14 PM 12:28 PM 12:43 PM
800.0
700.0
600.0
500.0
Travel Time
Delay (s)
400.0
300.0
200.0
Total Delay
100.0
0.0
10:48 AM 11:02 AM 11:16 AM 11:31 AM 11:45 AM 12:00 PM 12:14 PM 12:28 PM 12:43 PM
35.0
30.0
Average
25.0
Running Speed
Speed (kmph)
20.0
5.0
0.0
11:09 AM 11:24 AM 11:38 AM 11:52 AM 12:07 PM 12:21 PM
900.0
800.0
700.0
600.0 Travel Time
Delay (s)
500.0
400.0
300.0
Total Delay
200.0
100.0
0.0
11:02 AM 11:16 AM 11:31 AM 11:45 AM 12:00 PM 12:14 PM 12:28 PM
The inferences that can be drawn from the above results are as below:
As noted before, due to the abrupt increase of travel time at the start of
intermediate peak hour the variations in average running speed in D2
direction are higher when compared to the D1 direction. However, the
variations in the average journey speeds in both directions are comparable.
The bottleneck portions identified in both the directions with respective causes
of delay are given in the table below:
LIMITATIONS
The most severe limitation of this study us that the numbers of observations are
limited which reduces the credibility of the conclusions drawn from the results
obtained.
The results of this study could not be substantiated by a Traffic Volume Count which
justified their claims about the starting and ending times of the peak and off-peak
periods.
Apart from that, the observers felt great difficulty in discerning the factors causing
delays during the runs and hence the various factors had to be clubbed in order to
define the causes of delay at a particular point. Thus, delays being caused by
individual factors (e.g. how much is the delay caused by the queue of vehicles ahead
of the survey vehicle taking time to start moving even after the signal has turned
green much before) could not be represented which could provide better information
regarding the traffic bottlenecks.
REFERENCES
Santosh A. Jalihal, K. Ravindar, T.S. Reddy (2005)1. Traffic Characteristics
of India. Central Road Research Institute.
www.delhiplanning.nic.in. “Economic Survey of Delhi – Chapter 12.”
S.K. Khanna and C.E.G Justo. Highway Engineering (book).
www.maps.google.com