CVEN 2401/2402 Workshop: Week 2

Introduction to Traffic Flow Theory

Question 1:

Headways and the different types of speed

The town of Congestington (pop. 5400) has recently received an influx of complaints about
the driving behaviour of its populace. Congestington has only a single road, 5 km in distance
that connects the sides of town. Congestington is not a wealthy town, and so theyve hired
you (an independent contractor) to evaluate their traffic situation. Unfortunately, due to the
presence of endangered bears (see Figure 1), there is no way for Congestington to take
measurements on the road itself.

Figure 1. The Congestington Road Network

Being very poor indeed, the town of Congestington has managed to provide you with only
the following entry and exit data for the entire 5km length of the only road into the town:

Entrance
Vehicle Exit time (s)
time (s)
1 0 290
2 22 233
3 60 190
4 80 300
5 100 439
6 150 384

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Help Congestington understand their traffic situation by performing the following series of
steps.

a) Begin by visualising the provided data. Create a time-space diagram. Are there
any assumptions made to plot the time-space diagram?

Solution:

Time-Space Diagram
5000
4500
4000
3500
Distance (metres)

3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
Time (seconds)

Vehicle 1 Vehicle 2 Vehicle 3 Vehicle 4 Vehicle 5 Vehicle 6

Assumptions: the main assumption is constant speed.

b) Calculate headways, spacings, time-mean speeds, and space-mean speeds

when = , and = , .

Solution:

Headway (Time Headway)

When x = 1000m, the headways between each of the vehicles are as follows

Lead Following
Headway (s)
Vehicle Vehicle
1 2 6.2
2 3 21.8
3 4 38
4 5 43.8
5 6 29

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However, when x = 4000m, the headways between each of the vehicles are as follows:

Lead Following
Headway (s)
Vehicle Vehicle
3 2 26.8
2 1 41.2
1 4 24
4 6 81.2
6 5 34

Spacings

When we consider particular points in time, the spacing (space headway) will be measured
in terms of distance between the two vehicles.

For example if we consider when time, t = 150s

Lead Following Headway

Vehicle Vehicle (m)
3 2 428.36
2 1 446.97
1 4 995.30
4 5 853.45
5 6 737.46

And at t = 300s

Lead Following Headway

Vehicle Vehicle (m)
4 6 1794.87
6 5 255.28

During the time period t=300s, vehicles 1 to 3 have reached the town so we are only
considering the spacing between the remaining vehicles.

Time-mean speed

1
=

1

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 Entrance Average
Vehicle Exit time (s)
time (s) Speed (kph)
1 0 290 62
2 22 233 85
3 60 190 138
4 80 300 82
5 100 439 53
6 150 384 77

6
1
= 62 + 85 + 138 + 82 + 53 + 77 = 82.8
6
1

Space-mean speed

1 1
= = = 75.7
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
1 1/ ( + + + + + )
6 62 85 138 82 53 77

Time-Space Diagram
5000
4500
4000
3500
Distance (metres)

3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
Time (seconds)

Vehicle 1 Vehicle 2 Vehicle 3 Vehicle 4 Vehicle 5 Vehicle 6

c) Does this assessment account for encountering a bear on the road? Consider
and discuss safety implications of the dataset and analysis. Is this analysis
micro- or macro-scopic?

We dont consider any acceleration or deceleration, which may be important in a safety

analysis. Also, it is possible that the space between vehicles is not a safe distance.

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Micro: individual vehicle behaviour is important, such as car-following and lane changing,
usually second-to-second data. Macro is on a larger scale and used to estimate an
aggregate network (or city-wide) impact. This model doesnt neatly fit into either definition.

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Question 2

Relating flow, density and speed, the fundamental properties of traffic flow

You go back to the town of Congestington and request further data. Congestington decides
to implement a novel technique to gather traffic data based on satellite images, so the bears
are undisturbed.

a) Vehicle time headways and spacings were measured at a point along the
Congestington expressway, from a single lane, over the course of an hour. The
average values were calculated as 2.5 s/veh for headway and 61 m/veh for
spacing. Calculate the average speed of the traffic.

Solution:

= 1440 /

= 16.4 /

= 87.4 /

Finally, Congestington conducts a study of freeway flow at a site along the expressway and
after analysis, resulted in calibrated speed-density relationship as follows:

= 57.5(1 0.008)

b) For the above relationship, determine:

i. the free flow speed,
ii. jam density,
iii. the speed-flow relationship
iv. the flow-density relationship, and
v. capacity

Assumptions of units: Speed (S) = km/hr,

Density/Density (D) =vehicles/km/lane

Flow (Q) = vehicles/hr/lane

Solution:

(a) Free flow speed occurs when D = 0;

Thus S = 57.5km/hr (substituting into (1)

(b) Jam Density occurs when S = 0;

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= 125

(c) The goal is to find a function between speed (S) and flow (Q).
Since flow (Q) is equal to the speed (S) multiplied by the density (D) (which can be
presented to students using unit conversion as follows:
=

Substitute = into (1) to determine a f(Q,S);

57.5 2
=
0.46
(d) The goal is to find a function between flow (Q) and Density (D).

Substitute = into (1) to determine a f(Q,S);
= 57.5(1 0.008)

(e) Capacity is found by determining the maximum of the speed-flow or flow-density

relationships.
= 57.5(1 0.008)

= 57.5 (1 0.016) = 0, to determine maximum flow values

= 62.5

= 1797

(nearest vehicle)

Question 3

Measuring Level of Service within traffic infrastructure

The town of Congestington is so pleased with your previous work that theyve asked for you
to perform another analysis. More people have been moving to Congestington lately and
now the town council wants to know about the level of service on their expressway. Using
their novel technology, the town provides you with a traffic count in two locations,A and B.
The recorded speed for the same time period at A and B was 85 kph and 35 kph.

Estimate the level of service in each location and describe any necessary
assumptions.

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From the lecture:

You need to assume a maximum flow to plot your diagram go with 1800 veh/hr/lane.
Assume a reasonable free flow speed (100 kph). You are given a flow and a speed, which
you can then plot on the diagram. To get the flow at each point, multiply by 12 (to the hourly
flow), which yields 612 and 768. Both of these points should be located in the B region, one
towards the top and one towards the bottom.

The intention of this question is to illustrate some of the shortcomings of LOS. For many
years, LOS was (and is) used as one of the primary measures of performance for many
roads. However, in many ways, it may give an incomplete picture of what is happening on
the road, as illustrated by both of estimations in this question falling within the B range, but
the conditions were vastly different! One was nearing free flow (as indicated by the speed)
and the other had a much lower speed (indicating that density is much higher and traffic is
moving more slowly). In fact the second point is in the lower half of the speed flow curve that
represents congestion.

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