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TRANSPORTATION
ENGINEERING

C H A R AC T E R I S T I C O F H U M A N ,
V E H I C L E & R OA D
Chapter

Characteristics of
Human, Vehicle &
Road

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Introduction
Main components of the highway mode of transportation
Human (driver & pedestrian)
Vehicle
Road

To provide efficient and safe highway transportation

Should have knowledge of basic characteristic and the
limitation of human performance, vehicle and roadway and
the interaction of each other
Determine the effects of the interrelationships that exists
among components

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 Driver Characteristics
Drivers statistics

In 1992 there were 0.73 licensed drivers per registered motor vehicle.
9.6% of the drivers involved in fatal accidents were unregistered.
5.1% of the licensed drivers were 19 years old or younger.
13.9% of the licensed drivers were 65 years or older.
The number of handicapped drivers continues to increase.
Drivers, 15 to 19 years old have a very high accident rate. Approximately 28
accidents per million miles driven as compared to about 4 accidents per million
miles driven for the 35 to 44 year old age group.
The accident rate begins to increase rapidly for drivers 70 years old and over.

What do these statistics tell the Transportation Engineer?

Transportation Engineers must design facilities to accommodate drivers who posses a

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wide range of skill levels.

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 The Human Response Process
Information is received by the driver through the visual and auditory
senses. Information can also be received via vibrations (i.e., pavement
etching, raised pavement markers, etc.)

Research has shown that approximately 90% of the information that a

driver receives is visual.

Visual Reception

Visual Acuity:
Ability of a person to see fine details of an object.
Dynamic visual acuity refers to a drivers ability to clearly detect
relatively moving objects not necessarily in the drivers direct line of
vision.
Most people can see clearly within a conical angle of 3 to 5 and fairly
clearly within a conical angle of 10 to 12. Vision beyond this range is
usually blurred.
Important when determining the placement of traffic information
devices such as roadside signs.
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 Example visual acuity

A driver with 6/6 vision can read a sign from a distance of 27 m.

If the letter size is 50.8 mm,
how close would a person with 6/15 vision have to be in
order to read the same sign?
Calculate the height of the lettering that a driver with 6/18
vision can read from a distance of 27 m.
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 The Human Response Process
Peripheral Vision:
The ability of a person to see objects beyond the cone of clearest vision.
Typically the cone for peripheral vision for a driver is about 160. This value
depends on the speed of the vehicle and the age of the driver.

Color Vision:
The ability of a person to differentiate one color from another (usually refer
to color blindness)
Black and white, black and yellow seem sensitives to eyes

Glare Vision and Recovery:

Glare Vision results in a decrease in ability for a driver to see and causes
discomfort for the driver.
Glare Recovery is the time it takes for a driver to recover from the effects of
glare after passing a light source.
Research has shown that the time to recover from dark to light conditions is
3 seconds and 6 seconds to recover from light to dark conditions.
Glare Vision is a problem for older people who drive at night.
Glare effects can be minimized by reducing the brightness of lights and
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positioning lights further from the roadway and increasing the height of the
lights. 7
 The Human Response Process
Depth Perception:
Depth Perception affects the ability of a driver to estimate speed and distance.
Extremely important on two-lane highways when a vehicle is passing another
vehicle with traffic approaching the passing vehicle.
The ability of a driver to estimate speed, distance, size and acceleration is
generally not very accurate. Traffic control devices are standard in size, shape
and color to provide a wide range of drivers sufficient information to make
important decisions.

Hearing Perception:
Typically hearing is only important when emergency vehicles are sounding a
warning to get out of their way. (can be corrected by hearing aid)

Smelling Perception
Detect overheated engine, burning brakes, smoking exhausts and fires

Vibrations (Sense of Touch):

Highway Pavements have etching on the outside edge of the shoulder to
indicate to the driver that they are leaving the pavement surface.
Raised markers in pavements are used to indicate that a reduction in
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speed is required on some highways.

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 info
The Human Response Process
Direct Implication For Traffic Design
Traffic sign & signals must be within the drivers field of
view, having regard to the travel speed
Alerted drivers with the presence of uncontrolled
intersections
Particular attention to railway crossings with passive
control
Signal lanterns should be located in a standard fashion
Intensity of traffic signals and the actual colors used
Size of traffic signs and the letters on them
Location of street lighting
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 Perception Reaction Process
The process through which a driver / pedestrian evaluates and reacts to a
stimulus. This can be divided into four sub-processes:-
Perception
actual seeing along with other perceived objects
Out of the corner of your eye you see something coming out of the woods
towards you
Identification
identifies and understand the stimulus
You realize that it is a dog about to cross the highway in front of you. Do you
swerve to miss it? Can you stop in time to miss it? Do you speed up to miss
it?
Emotion
decides what action to take in response to stimulus. A decision is made.
You decide the best course of action is to swerve and hopefully miss it.
Reaction / violation
reaction or execution of decision
You swerve just missing the dog
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 Perception Reaction Time
The time elapses from the start of perception to the end of reaction. Sometimes referred
as PIEV time.
They are used in the determination of
Sight Distances: Stopping Sight Distance (SSD), Passing Sight Distance (PSD)
and Decision Sight Distance (DSD).
Safe approach speeds at intersections and interchanges.
Timing of signals at railroad crossing.
Traffic signal change intervals.
The time vary depends on driver characteristic
Skill
Experience
Alertness - medical condition, sleep deprivation,
emotional condition
Age
Effect of alcohol and drug
Condition - expected or non-expected
Triggs and Harry - obtained by several situations - the time varies from 1.26 sec to 3
sec
AASHTO Design values:
2.5 seconds for computing stopping sight distances.
2.0 seconds for intersection sight distance due to the degree of anticipation of
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the driver approaching an intersection

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 info

Perception Reaction Time

Direct Implication For Traffic Design
Encourage familiarity
Minimize number of alternatives
Provide positive information
provide prior warning
Frequently reminded of control information
Rate of information gathering should be limited Not appropriate

Provide clear sight distance

Use symbolic signs
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 Perception Reaction Distance
Distance traveled during perception-reaction process (dp)
General formula:

dp vtp
where:
dp - the perception distance in meter
v - the speed in meter/sec
tp - the perception-reaction time in seconds.

Example:
Two drivers with a perception-reaction-time of 2.5 sec. One is driving at
80 km/h and the other is traveling at 120 km/h when they observe that
an accident has blocked the road ahead. Determine the distance of each
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vehicle would move before the driver could activate the brakes.
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 Pedestrian Characteristic
The pedestrian characteristic may influence the design and location of
pedestrian control devices. Such control device include
o Pedestrian signal
o Safety zones and islands at intersections
o Pedestrian underpasses
o Elevated walkways and crosswalk (zebra crossing)
Apart of visual and hearing characteristic, walking characteristic play a
major part in the design of the above control device
Observation of pedestrian movement
o walking speeds of pedestrian vary between 1.0 to 2.5 m/sec
o Significant different between male and female, mean male walking
speed is 1.5 m/sec, while for female is 1.4 m/sec
The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Device (MUTCD) suggests:
1.2 m/sec for design purpose
If percentage of elderly pedestrians is higher than 20% - recommended
speed 1.0 m/sec
Higher percentage of handicapped pedestrian speed range from 0.6
m/sec to 1.1 m/sec
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 Bicyclist and Bicycles
Bicyclist not only driver of the bicycle, but provide power to move the
bicycle
Class A
experienced or advanced bicyclists
Consider motor vehicle and can comfortably ride in traffic
Class B
less experience bicyclist
Prefer to ride on neighborhood
Class C
children riding on their own or with parents
Residential street that provide access to schools and recreational
facilities and stores

Mean speed of bicycles from a stopped position is 2.44 m/sec with

mean acceleration rate is 1.06 m/sec2
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 Vehicle Characteristics
Criteria to design the highway geometric based on
Static characteristic:
include the weight and size of vehicle
Kinematic characteristic:
involve the motion of the vehicle (acceleration
capability)
Dynamic characteristic:
involve the forces that cause the motion.
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 Static Characteristics
The size of design vehicle for highway is an important
factor in determination of design standards such as
lane width, shoulder width, length and width of
parking bays, and length of turning curves.
3 general classes of vehicles by AASHTO:
o passenger-cars (PC) - all light vehicle and
delivery trucks (vans and pickups)
o trucks (T) single unit truck tractor-semitrailer
o buses/recreational vehicles (RV) - single unit
buses, motor home, passenger car or motor
homes pulling trailer or boats
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 Static Characteristics
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 Static Characteristics

All units in ft. ( 1 ft. = 0.3048 m)

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 Static Characteristics
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 Static Characteristics
Turning template
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 Kinematic Characteristics
The acceleration capability of the vehicle is important
in
o traffic operations such as passing maneuvers,
gap acceptance
o dimensioning of highway feature such as freeway
ramps and passing lanes.
o determining the forces that causes motion
Study of kinematic characteristic involve the study
how acceleration rates influence the elements of
motion such as velocity, distance and time
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 Kinematic Characteristics
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 Kinematic Characteristics
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 Kinematic Characteristics
Deceleration Characteristics:

Large Trucks decelerate at a lower rate than passenger

cars and will require a longer distance to stop than
passenger cars.

AASHTO recommends a deceleration rate of 3.41 m/sec2

(11.2 ft/sec2) which is a comfortable deceleration rate for
most drivers.

Many studies have shown that the deceleration rate is

greater than 4.51 m/sec2 (14.8 ft/sec2 under emergency
situations.
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 Dynamic Characteristics
Several forces act on a vehicle while
it is in motion
air resistance - force to overcome
the air resistance in front of vehicle
and force due to frictional action of
the air around it
grade resistance - weight of vehicle acts downward along the plane
of highway
rolling resistance - sum of force due to frictional effect and frictional
slip between pavement surface and tires
curve resistance - summation of force act on the front wheels and
effect of forward motion

Action of above forces and effect of perception reaction time are

important to determine braking distance and minimum turning
radius.

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 Dynamic Characteristics
Air Resistance

Force to overcome the air resistance in front of vehicle and

force due to frictional action of the air around it.

Ra = air resistance force (lb)

= density of air (0.0766 lb/ft3 at sea level; less at higher elevations
CD = aerodynamic drag-coefficient (current average value for passenger cars
is 0.4; for trucks, this value ranges from 0.5 to 0.8, but a typical value
is 0.5) A = frontal cross-sectional area (ft2)
u = vehicle speed (mph)
g = acceleration of gravity (32.2 ft/sec2)
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 Dynamic Characteristics
Grade Resistance

Weight of vehicle acts downward along the plane of

highway.
W = weight of vehicle (lbs)
G = grade (decimal)

If the vehicle is operating on a downgrade then RG must

be subtracted from R to compute the power requirement.

Power Requirements:

P = horsepower delivered (hp)

R = sum of resistance to motion (lb)
u = speed of vehicle (mph)
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 Dynamic Characteristics
Rolling Resistance

Sum of internal friction of moving parts plus frictional slip

between the pavement and the tires.

For Passenger Cars:

Rr = rolling resistance force (lb)

Crs = constant (typically 0.012 for passenger cars)
Crv = constant (typically 0.65 X 10-6 sec2/ft2 for passenger cars)
u = vehicle speed (mph)
W = gross vehicle weight (lb)
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 Dynamic Characteristics
Rolling Resistance

For Trucks:

Rr = rolling resistance force (lb)

Cd = constant (typically 0.02445 for trucks)
Cb = constant (typically 0.00044 sec/ft for trucks)
u = vehicle speed (mph)
W = gross vehicle weight (lb)

Rolling Resistance is dependent on the condition of the roadway.

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 Dynamic Characteristics
Curve Resistance

Summation of force act on the front wheels and effect of

forward motion

Rc = curve resistance force (lb)

u = vehicle speed (mph)
W = gross vehicle weight (lb)
g = acceleration of gravity (32.2 ft/sec2)
R = radius of curvature (ft)

This force is used to apply superelevation (banking) to the roadway

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 Dynamic Characteristics
Braking Distance

2
u
and d x cos
Wa
W sin Wf cos Where; a b
g 2x
2
Wv
cos Wf cos W sin
2 gd b

2
v
d v2 v v2
2 2
db db 1
2 g f tan
b
2g f G or 2g f G
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Complete stop Speed reducing

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Dynamic Characteristics
Turning Radius

The centrifugal force

Wa
F C
C

g
ac=acceleration for curvilinear motion
= v2/R

F W F
CP P f

Wv 2 v2
cos W sin Wf s cos and Rv (tan f S )
gRv g
2
v 2 2 V
Rv Rv
v Rv
g tan f S g e f S
or 127e f S
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 Dynamic Characteristics
Braking Distance

Example:

A motorist traveling at 100 km/hr on an expressway

intends to leave the expressway using an exit ramp
with a maximum speed of 60 km/hr. At what point on
the expressway should the motorist step on her
brakes in order to reduce her speed to the maximum
allowable on the ramp just before entering the ramp,
if the section of the expressway has a downgrade of
3 percent?
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 Dynamic Characteristics
Braking Distance

Example:

A student trying the braking ability of her car

determined that she needed 5.6 m more to stop
her car when driving downhill on a road segment of
5 percent grade than when driving downhill at the
same speed along another segment of 3 percent
grade. Determine the speed at which the student
conducted her test and the braking distance on the
5 percent grade if the student is traveling at the
test speed in the uphill direction
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 Dynamic Characteristics
Minimum Turning radius

Example:

An existing horizontal curve on a highway has a

radius of 142 m, which restricts the posted speed
limit on this section of the road to only 61.5 % of
the design speed of the highway. If the curve is to
be improved so that its posted speed will be the
design speed of the highway, determine the
minimum radius of the new curve. Assume the rate
of superelevation is 0.08 for both the existing curve
and the new curve to be designed. Side friction is
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0.15
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 Road Characteristics
Direct relationship to the characteristic of the driver and the vehicle

SIGHT DISTANCE
Length of the roadway a driver can see ahead at any particular time

STOPPING SIGHT PASSING SIGHT

DISTANCE DISTANCE
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Stopping Sight Distance

Minimum sight distance required for a driver to stop a vehicle

after seeing an object in the vehicles path without hitting the
object

SSD d d P b

v v 2 2

SSD vt 1 2

2 g ( f G)
p

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Stopping Sight Distance AASHTO
Design Speed, Coefficient of Stopping sight
km/h friction f distance, m
30 0.40 29.6-29.6
40 0.38 44.4-44.4
50 0.35 57.4-62.8
60 0.33 74.3-84.6
70 0.31 94.1-110.8
80 0.30 112.8-139.4
90 0.30 131.2-168.7
100 0.29 157.0-205.0
110 0.28 179.5-246.4
120 0.28 202.9-285.6
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Stopping Sight Distance
Example:

The design speed of a multilane highway is 100

km/h, what is the minimum stopping sight distance
that should be provided on the road if
a) the road is level
b) the road has a maximum grade of 4 percent

Assume the perception-reaction time = 2.5 sec.

Coefficient between tire & pavement = 0.29

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Stopping Sight Distance
Example:

A motorist traveling at 90 km/hr down a grade of 5

percent on a highway observes an accident ahead
of him, involving an overturned truck that is
completely blocking the road. If the motorist was
able to stop his vehicle 9 m from the overturned
truck, what was his distance from the truck when
he first observed the accident?

Assume the perception-reaction time = 2.5 sec.

Coefficient between tire & pavement = 0.30

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Stopping Sight Distance
Example:

A test of drivers reaction time is being conducted on

a special testing track at a driving speed of 90km/h.
when the driver is sober, a stop can be made just in
time to avoid hitting an object that is first visible
160m ahead. After few drinks, and under the same
conditions, the driver fails to stop in time and strikes
the object at a speed of 55km/h. Determine the
drivers reaction time before and after drinking.

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Stopping Sight Distance
Example:
A driver with normal vision can read a sign from a distance of
15 m for each 25.4 mm of letter height. Design how far away
from the exit ramp a directional sign should be located to
allow a safe reduction of speed from 90 km/hr to 50 km/hr to
consider driver with 6/12 vision.
Perception reaction time = 1.5 sec
f =0.30
Letter size of 203.2 mm
Level roadway

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Passing Sight Distance
Minimum sight distance required
for a driver to overtake and pass
another vehicle (complete a
passing maneuver) on a two-
lane, two-way highway without
colliding with an an opposing
vehicle and cutting off the
passed vehicle

d1= dist traversed during perception & reaction time and during initial acceleration to
the point of encroachment on the left lane
d2 = dist. traveled while the passing veh occupies left lane
d3= dist. between the passing veh and opposing veh at the end of the passing
maneuver
d4= dist. traversed by the opposing veh during two-thirds of the time the passing veh is
in the left lane ( 2/3 d2) 44
Passing Sight Distance

PSD d d d d
1 2 3 4

By Assuming
The vehicle being passed is traveling at a uniform speed
The speed of the passing vehicle is reduced or same as
impeder before decision to begin passing maneuver
Some time elapses during which the driver decides whether to
undertake the passing maneuver
Clearance exist between passing vehicle and opposing vehicle
when passing vehicle reenters the right lane

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Passing Sight Distance - AASHTO
Design speed, km/h Passing Sight Distance, m
30 217
40 285
50 345
60 407
70 482
80 541
90 605
100 670
110 728
120 792
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Assignments
1. A driver hit an object at 20 km/hr and left 6 m skid marks on the pavement
(f=0.3). Determine the initial speed if the road is at 1% upgrade.
2. A large rock became visible to a driver at a distance of 53 m. assuming a
perception-reaction time of 1.0 s, an initial speed of 67 km/hr, a coefficient of
friction is 0.5, and a level roadway. Calculate the speed at impact
3. A driver with 6/12 vision needs 2 s to read a directional sign. The letter size is
such that the sign can be read by a person with 6/6 vision from a distance of
60 m. Does a driver with 6/12 vision has enough time to read the sign at a
speed of 48 km/hr?
4. The street name sizes on the signs at a certain location can be discerned by a
person with 6/12 vision from a distance of 90 m. How much larger should the
street names be in order to be legible to a person with 6/15 vision from a
distance of 137 m?
5. A driver with normal vision can read a sign from a distance of 15 m for each
25.4 mm of letter height at a level roadway. Design how far away from the exit
ramp a directional sign should be located to allow a safe reduction of speed
from 90 km/hr to 40 km/hr to consider driver with 6/12 vision if the letter size
is 203.2 mm (use t = 2.5 sec, f =0.30)
6. A driver traveling down a 4%grade collides with a roadside object in rainy
conditions. The posted speed limit is 105 km/hr. The accident investigation
team determined that the vehicle was traveling 65 km/h when it struck the
object, braking skid marks started 61 m before the struck object. The
pavement is in good condition with f=0.2. Should the driver appeal the ticket
for driving too fast? 47