HIGHWAY RESEARCH

JOURNAL

* PAVEMENT
* TRAFFIC ENGINEERING

HIGHWAY RESEARCH BOARD

INDIAN ROADS CONGRESS

Volume 5 No. 2 July - December 2012

 (All Rights Reserved. No part of this Publication shall be reproduced, translated or
transmitted in any form or by any means without the permission of the
Indian Roads Congress)

Published on behalf of the Indian Roads Congress at Jamnagar House, Shahjahan Road, New Delhi-110 011 and
Printed at Aravali Printers & Publishers Pvt. Ltd., W-30 Okhla Phase-II, New Delhi-110 020.
Editor Shri Vishnu Shankar Prasad, Secretary General, Indian Roads Congress, Jamnagar House,
Shahjahan Road, New Delhi-110 011.
14000
 Members of the IRC Highway research Board
(2012-2014)

1. The Director General (Road Development) & Chairman

Special Secretary, to the Govt. of India
(Shri C. Kandasamy)
Ministry of Road Transport & Highways,
Transport Bhawan, 1, Parliament Street,
NEW DELHI – 110 001
[in the event of DG(RD) not in position,
the President, IRC will function]

2. The Secretary General Secretary
(Shri Vishnu Shankar Prasad)
Indian Roads Congress,
Kama KotiMarg,
Sector 6, R.K. Puram,
NEW DELHI – 110 022

Members

3. The President, IRC 8. The Member (Technical)

(Shri P.N. Jain)
Chief Engineer (NH) & Addl. Secretary,
Road & Building Deptt. Govt. of Gujarat,
Block No. 14, 1st Floor,
New Sachivalaya,
GANDHINAGAR-382 010
4. The Director
(Dr. S. Gangopadhyay)
CSIR-Central Road Research Institute,
P.O. CRRI, Delhi-Mathura Road,
NEW DELHI – 110 020
5. The Additional Director General
(Shri V.L. Patankar)
Ministry of Road Transport & Highways,
Transport Bhawan, 1, Parliament Street,
NEW DELHI – 110 001
6. The Additional Director General-II
Ministry of Road Transport & Highways,
Transport Bhawan, 1, Parliament Street,
NEW DELHI – 110 001
7. The Director General Border Roads
Seema Sadak Bhawan,
Ring Road, Delhi Cantt.,
NEW DELHI – 110 010
National Highways Authority of India,
Plot No.G-5 & 6, Dwarka,
NEW DELHI – 110 075
9. The Director (Technical)
(Dr. I.K. Pateriya)
National Rural Roads Development Agency (NRRDA),
5th Floor, NBCC Towers,
BhikajiCama Place,
NEW DELHI – 110 066
10. The Director
(Shri S.N. Das)
Indian Academy of Highway Engineers,
A-5, Institutional Area,
Sector 62, NH-24 Bypass,
NOIDA – 201 301 (U.P.)
11. The Chief Engineer (Roads) SR&T
(Shri Arun Kumar Sharma)
Ministry of Road Transport & Highways,
Transport Bhawan, 1, Parliament Street,
NEW DELHI – 110 001
12. The Chief Engineer (Bridges) SR&T
(Shri A.P. Pathak)
Ministry of Road Transport & Highways,
Transport Bhawan, 1, Parliament Street,
NEW DELHI – 110 001
13. The Engineer-in-Chief 21. The Chief Engineer (NH),
(Shri Mahesh Kumar) P.W.D. (Roads),
Haryana Public Works (B&R) Department, Barik Compound,
NirmanSadan, Plot No.1, Opposite State Library,
DakshinMarg, Sector 33A, SHILLONG-793 001 (Meghalaya)
CHANDIGARH (Haryana) 22. The Chief Engineer
14. The Chief Engineer (NH), (Shri N.N. Deka)
(N.H. Works) Assam,
(Shri R.P. Singh)
Chandmari,
Punjab P.W.D. B&R Branch,
GUWAHATI-781 003(Assam)
Nirman Bhawan,
Block-C, Mini Secretariat, 23. Thiru R. Rajaraman
PATIALA-147 001 (Punjab) Chief Engineer
Quality Assurance and Research,
15. The Chief Engineer (NH), 76, Sardar Patel Road,
(Shri B.P. Chauhan) Opp. Raj Bhavan,
PWD Rajasthan, CHENNAI – 600 025 (Tamil Nadu)
JAIPUR-302 006 (Rajasthan)
24 The Joint Director
16. The Chief Engineer (NH) & Addl. Secretary Kerala Highway Research Institute,
(Shri P.N. Jain) PWD Kariyavattom,
R&B Deptt., THIRUVANANTHAPURAM – 695 581 (Kerala)
Block No.14, 1st Floor,
New Sachivalaya, 25. The Joint Director (Roads)
GANDHINAGAR-382 010 (Gujarat) (Shri M.K. Sheth)
Gujarat Engineering Research Institute (GERI),
17. The Chief Engineer (NH) Race Course,
Public Works Region, VADODARA – 390 007 (Gujarat)
Konkan Bhawan,
26. The Director General
NAVI MUMBAI-400 614
(Shri D.D. Bhide)
(Maharashtra)
Design, Training, Hydrology, Research & Safety
18. The Engineer-in-Chief (R&B), Admn. & NH (DTHRS),
(Shri K. Siva Reddy) Maharashtra Engineering Research Institute (MERI),
R&B Department, Dindori Road,
Errummanzil, NASHIK – 422 004 (Maharashtra)
HYDERABAD – 500 082 27. The Director
(Andhra Pradesh) UPPWD Research Institute and
Quality Promotion Organisation,
19. The Chief Engineer (NH),
Nirman Bhawan, 96, M.G. Marg,
(Shri M. Bhagat)
LUCKNOW-226 001 (UP)
Road Construction Deptt.,
Engineering Hostel, 28. Dr. S.S. Jain
HEC, Dhurwa, Professor of Civil Engineering ,
RANCHI-834 004 (Jharkhand) Deptt. of Civil Engineering,
Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee,
20. The Engineer-in-Chief-cum-Secretary ROORKEE – 247 667
to the Govt. of Odisha (Uttarakhand)
(Shri Subhendu Kumar Ray)
Works Department, 29. Prof. A. Veeraragavan
Odisha Secretariat, Professor, Deptt. of Civil Engineering,
BHUBANESWAR – 751 001 (Odisha) Indian Institute of Technology Madras,
CHENNAI – 600 036 (Tamil Nadu)
30. Dr. P.K. Sarkar
Professor, Deptt. of Transport Planning,
School of Planning & Architecture,
E-799, C.R. Park,
NEW DELHI – 110 019
31. Prof. L.S. Ramchandra
Head, Deptt. of Civil Engineering,
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur,
KHARAGPUR-721 302 (West Bengal)
32. Dr. Animesh Das
Associate Professor,
Deptt. of Civil Engineering,
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur,
KANPUR- 208 016 (Uttar Pradesh)
33. Shri S. B. Vasava
Chief Engineer, Panchayat &
Addl. Secretary,
Roads & Buildings Department,
Sachivalay,
GANDHINAGAR (Gujarat)
34. The Chief Operating Officer
(Shri Mahesh M. Hiremath)
Karnataka Rural Road Development Agency,
Nirman Bhavan, II Floor,
KSCC Building,
Rajajinagar Ist Block,
Dr. Rajkumar Road,
BANGALORE-560 010
(Karnataka)
35. The Chief Engineer
(Shri C. P. Tongden)
Rural Management & Development
Department, Tashiling, Secretariat,
GANGTOK (Sikkim)
36. The Chief Executive Officer
(Shri Ranjit Kumar Majumder)
Tripura Rural Road Development Agency
(TRRDA) & JS PWD,
Govt. of Tripura, Directorate of
Urban Development,
3rd Floor of Khadya Bhavan,
Pandit Nehru Complex,
AGARTALA – 799 006 Tripura (W)
37. The Chief Engineer
(Shri K. K. Srivastava)
Uttarakhand Rural Roads Agency,
Opp. I.T. Park, Shastradhara Road,
DEHRADUN- 248 001 (Uttarakhand)
38. The Director
(Shri G. Dinshaw)
Central Institute of Road Transport,
Post Box No. 1897, Bhosari,
Pune-Nasik Road,
PUNE – 411 026 (Maharashtra)
39 Prof. P.K. Sikdar
(Former Director, CRRI),
President, Intercontinental Consultants &
Technocrats (ICT) Pvt. Ltd.,
A-9, Green Park,
NEW DELHI – 110 016
40 Shri R.S. Sharma
Jt. Managing Director,
Consulting Engineers Group Limited,
C-478, 2nd Floor, Block-C,
Vikas Puri,
NEW DELHI-110 018
41. Shri A.K. Banerjee
Director (Technical),
Scott Wilson India Pvt. Ltd.,
B-210, Second Floor, C.R. Park,
NEW DELHI – 110 019
42. Major V.C. Verma
Executive Director – Marketing,
Oriental Structural Engineers Pvt. Ltd.,
21, Commercial Complex,
Malcha Marg, Diplomatic Enclave,
NEW DELHI – 110 021
43. Shri M.M. Khan
Vice-President,
Gammon India Ltd.,
Library Tech., Gammon House,
Veer Savarkar Marg, Prabhadevi,
MUMBAI – 400 025
44. Shri U. Jayakodi
Director (Technical)
BSCPL Infrastructure Ltd.,
M. No. 8-2-502/1/A, JIVI Towers,
Road No. 7, Banjara Hills,
HYDERABAD – 500 034
 Co-opted Members

45 Dr. L.R. Kadiyali 50. Dr. G.V.S. Raju

Chief Executive, Chief Engineer (Roads & Buildings),
M/s. L.R. Kadiyali & Associates, Rural Roads, Errummanzil,
RZ-44, Bhawani Kunj, HYDERABAD – 500 082
Behind D-2, Vasant Kunj,
NEW DELHI – 110 070 51. Shri K.S. Krishna Reddy
Chief Engineer
46. Shri D.P. Gupta “HARSHITHA”,
DG (RD) & AS (Retd.), MOST No. 1333, 8th Cross,
D-21, Ground Floor, 11th Main, Judicial Layout,
Greater Kailash Enclave Part-I, GKVK Post,
BANGALORE – 560 065
NEW DELHI – 110 048
52. Dr. G. L. Sivakumar Babu
47. Shri P.L. Bongirwar
Professor, Department of Civil Engineering,
(Principal Secretary (Retd.), Indian Institute of Science,
PWD Maharashtra) BANGALORE – 560 012
Advisor, L&T,
B/1102, Pataliputra CHS, 53. Prof. K. Sudhakar Reddy
Near Four Bunglow Signal, Deptt. of Civil Engineering,
Andheri (E), Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur,
KHARAGPUR-721 302
MUMBAI – 400 053
55. Dr. C.S.R.K. Prasad
48. Shri D. Sanyal
Professor & Head,
Managing Director, Transportation Division,
M/s. CRAPHTS Consultants (I) Pvt. Ltd. Department of Civil Engineering,
14/3, Mathura Road, National Institute of Technology,
FARIDABAD-121 003 (Haryana) WARANGAL – 506 004
(Andhra Pradesh)
49. Shri T. Elangovan
Scientist-G (Formerly Director)
National Transportation Planning &
Research Centre (NATPAC),
Sasthra Bhawan, Pattom Palace P.O.,
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM – 695 004 (Kerala)
 contents

PAVEMENT Page
Rigid Pavement Response to Environment and Traffic Loading Investigated 1
through Instrumentation
Binod Kumar, Renu Mathur & S. Gangopadhyay

Automated Detection and Measurement of Potholes from Road Surface Video Clips 9
Huidrom Lokeshwor, Lalit K. Das & S.K. Sud

Reinforced Cement Concrete Pavement for Village Roads in Alluvial Region: 19

A Sustainable Option
R.K. Srivastava, S.K. Duggal & K.K. Shukla

TRAFFIC ENGINEERING
Modeling Occurrence and Severity of Road Crashes on Selected Multi Lane 27
Carriageways in India
S. Padma, S. Velmurugan, E. Madhu, J. Sitaramanjaneyulu, S. Gangopadhyay
& A Revathi

Application of Fuzzy Logic in Traffic Signal Coordination 33

R. Ashalatha & Manjusha
 written comments on the papers published in this
highway research journal are invited and may be sent
at hrb@irc.org.in BEFORE 31st JANUARY, 2013

The opinions and conclusions in this Journal are those of the

Authors and not of the IRC Highway Research Board
 RIGID PAVEMENT RESPONSE TO ENVIRONMENTAL AND TRAFFIC LOADING
INVESTIGATED THROUGH INSTRUMENTATION
Binod Kumar*, Renu Mathur** & S. Gangopadhyay***

ABSTRACT
The response of concrete pavement slabs to environmental and traffic loadings has been captured through instrumented test sections laid
at Allahabad by-pass on NH-2; Kota, Rajasthan, on NH-76 and Siliguri, West Bengal, on NH-31. The sensors, embedded into the concrete
pavement slabs during construction, included Vibrating Wire (VW) type temperature sensors and strain gauges, and resistance type dynamic
strain gauges. VW temperature sensors measured temperature within the concrete slabs at various depths. VW strain gauges measured the
strain induced at different depths due to the temperature. Resistance type dynamic strain gauges measured the strains induced within the
concrete due to vehicle axle loads under dynamic conditions. Concrete slab behaviour during hardening phase and afterwards was studied.
Theoretical curling stresses were compared with measured stresses. Tests were conducted under road traffic to measure the dynamic strains
induced at non-tied and tied edges with different axle loads.
1 INTRODUCTION response to environmental and vehicle loads may be
characterized more accurately by measuring temperature and
Rigid pavement design is largely based on past experience strains through various sensors and instruments embedded
and empirical data. Theoretically temperature stresses and into the concrete slabs. Keeping this in view, instrumented
wheel load stresses at mid slab edge in concrete pavements concrete pavement sections were constructed near Silliguri
are calculated using Westergaard’s classical approach which (NH-31), Allahabad (NH-2), and Kota (NH-76) on three
is based on various assumptions. Temperature gradient different National Highways. This Paper presents the
across the depth of the concrete pavement slab causes the findings related to the response of instrumented concrete
slab to curl and deform resulting in the bending stresses. pavement slabs under real field conditions.
Westergaard1 presented an analysis of curling stresses in
concrete slab based upon the plate theory, and Bradbury2 2 DESCRIPTION OF INSTRUMENTS
developed a simple chart and equations to calculate curling
The response of concrete pavement slabs to environmental
stress. The analysis is based on the assumption that the
and traffic loading was studied through sensors embedded
temperature distribution is linear throughout the depth of the
into the concrete pavement slabs during construction. The
slab. This is an approximation, because studies have shown
sensors which were embedded into concrete slabs included
that the actual distribution is nonlinear3,4.
Vibrating Wire (VW) type temperature sensors and strain
The load stresses induced in the concrete pavement gauges, and resistance type dynamic strain gauges. VW
slabs can be determined using formulae developed by temperature sensors measured temperature within the
Westergaard. These formulae were developed for single concrete slabs at various depths. VW strain gauges measured
wheel load. Pickett and Ray charts can be used for multiple the strain induced at different depths due to temperature
wheel loads of any configuration. The present guidelines of variation. Resistance type strain gauges were used to measure
IRC:58, 2nd revised for design of rigid pavements, are based the strains induced within the concrete due to vehicle axle
on the determination of temperature and load stresses as per loads under dynamic conditions. The data from the VW type
Westergaard and Pickett-Ray formulae respectively. sensors and resistance type strain gauges was captured by
using static and dynamic data loggers.
The real field conditions with regard to the subgrade
3 DESCRIPTION OF TEST SECTIONS
support, presence of granular and dry lean concrete subbases
under the slabs, dowel bars at transverse joints and tie bars Instrumented concrete pavement test sections were
at longitudinal joints between slabs of different lanes and constructed at three locations – near Silliguri on NH-31 in
at tied shoulders etc. are quite different from theoretical West Bengal, Allahabad by-pass on NH-2 in U. P., and near
assumptions. Thus, the actual response of concrete pavement Kota on NH-76 in Rajasthan. The instrumented test section
slabs subjected to environmental and traffic loading may be near Silliguri is approximately 60 km from the city at chainage
different from what is obtained theoretically. The pavement 508.341 on NH-31. Thickness of concrete pavement slabs is
The views expressed in the Paper are personal views of the author. For any quary, the author may be contacted at e-mail

}
* Scientist, Rigid Pavements Division
** Head, Rigid Pavements Division Central Road Research Institute, New Delhi
*** Director

highway research journal, july – december 2012 1

 Kumar, Mathur & Gangopadhyay on

310 mm and slab size is 4.375 m x 5.0 m laid over 150 mm

thick Dry Lean Concrete (DLC) sub-base and 200 mm thick
drainage layer. The instrumented test section, located on
Allahabad By-pass on NH-2, is approximately 25 km from
Allahabad at a chainage of 188.885 near ROB. Thickness
of concrete pavement slabs is 320 mm and slab size is
4.75 m x 5.0 m. The thickness of underlying drainage layer
and DLC sub-base is 200 mm and 150 mm, respectively.
The instrumented test section near Kota is approximately
20 km from the city and at chainage 370.493 on NH-76.
Thickness of concrete pavement slabs is 300 mm and slab
size is 4.25 m x 4.5 m laid over 150 mm thick Dry Lean
Concrete (DLC) sub-base and 150 mm thick drainage layer.
Dry lean concrete with 7 days compressive strength of
Photo 1. Installation of Temperature Sensors
10 MPa and Pavement Quality Concrete of M40 Grade was
used at all the test sections. A separation membrane in the
form of 125 micron thick PVC sheet has been used between
concrete slabs and DLC sub-base at Allahabad and Silliguri
test sections. A layer of wax base curing compound has been
used as separation membrane at Kota test section.
4 EMBEDDMENT OF SENSORS INTO
CONCRETE
Sensors were installed into concrete pavement slabs after
tying them on steel chairs so that the orientation and
location of the sensors may not change during pouring and
compacting the concrete. The chairs were fabricated in the
workshops at site using 6 mm dia steel wires. The height
Photo 2. Installation of VW Strain Gauges
of the chairs was so fixed on the basis of the thickness of
slabs that the top most sensor when tied onto the chair gets 4.2 Installation of VW Strain Gauges
a minimum concrete cover of 25 mm. Before tying the Vibrating Wire Strain gauges were installed at mid slab
sensors, the chairs were fixed into the dry lean concrete sub- edge along the longitudinal and transverse direction
base with the help of sharp nails/U-shaped clips made at site. (Photo 2). Strain gauges have been embedded at various
Different kinds of chairs were required for the placement depths to measure temperature induced strains due to curling
of different sensors. Since, the VW temperature sensors and of the concrete slabs. Strains to be measured by VW strain
VW strain gauges were to be placed at different depths of gauges are slow strains that are induced inside concrete slab
the slab, it was ensured that the sensors are horizontally and due to the curling caused by temperature differential between
vertically staggered into the concrete and the chairs were top and bottom of the concrete slab. During the day time,
prepared accordingly. when the temperature on the top of the slab is greater than
4.1 Installation of VW Temperature Sensors that at the bottom, the top tends to expand with respect to the
neutral axis, while the bottom tends to contract. This leads
The purpose of installing temperature sensors was to measure the to the curling downward of the concrete slab. The weight of
temperature of concrete slab at different depths. Through thickness the slab restrains the curling of the slab. Thus, compressive
temperature variation is an important phenomenon of concrete stresses are induced at the top and tensile stresses at the
pavement slabs which causes the upward or downward curling bottom. The measured strain values were used for estimating
of slab and induces curling stresses in the slabs. Measurement of the temperature stresses or curling stresses in the slab.
temperature at top and bottom gives the temperature differential
across the thickness of the slab. Temperature sensors were installed 4.3 Installation of Dynamic Strain Gauges
at depth interval of approximately 40 mm and in the centre of the slab
Dynamic strain gauges or electrical resistance type strain
(Photo 1).

2 highway research journal, july – december 2012

 Rigid Pavement Response to Environmental and Traffic Loading Investigated through Instrumentation
gauges measure the dynamic strains induced in the concrete
due to traffic movement. The measured compressive strains in
the top fibers and tensile strains in the bottom fibers were used
for estimating load stresses induced in the concrete slabs. The
design of concrete pavement is based on the edge stresses at
the middle of the slab. Therefore, the dynamic strain gauges
have been installed in such a way so that the compressive and
tensile strains could be measured at the critical mid slab edge.
Strain gauges were embedded near the top and bottom at the
mid slab along the longitudinal tied joint edge and longitudinal
untied edge towards median (Photo 3).
Photo 3. Installation of Dynamic Strain Gauges
5 FIELD TESTING AND DATA COLLECTION
A data acquisition system is required for capturing the
continuous data generated by the instruments. It measures
the input from various types of sensors and facilitates the
analysis of data. It comprises mainly of a datalogger, a
computer attached to datalogger, and necessary software
which provides the facility for putting threshold values of
the sensor parameters and analysis of the collected data.
Two different kinds of datalogger were used for collecting
static data from VW type sensors and dynamic data from
electrical resistance type sensors.
5.1 Static Data Collection the slab during first few days of concrete hardening. Data
Geokon Micro-10 multi-channel datalogger, was used
for collecting data from VW temperature sensors and
strain gauges (Photo 4). The basic system consisted of the
MICRO-10 datalogger and a multiplexer. The nominal
operating voltage of the datalogger was 12 volts. However,
the minimum voltage for proper operation of the datalogger
was 9.6 volts. Two multiplexers attached with the MICRO-
10 were used in the project to collect data from all the
VW sensors. The cables of the sensors were connected to
highway research journal, july – december 2012
different channels of multiplexers which were attached to
datalogger. The data stored in the memory of datalogger was
downloaded into a laptop computer from time-to-time. The
static data was collected at an interval of 30 min.
Photo 4. Static Data Collection
5.2 Dynamic Data Collection
Power DNA UEILogger data acquisition system, was used
for collecting data from dynamic strain gauges during
load testing of instrumented slabs. The cables of electrical
resistance dynamic strain gauges were connected to the
channels of the datalogger which was connected to the
laptop computer. The sampling rate of the datalogger was
1000 samples per second per channel. The data logging
was started by triggering the datalogger from the laptop at
the beginning of each load test and stopped at the end of
the test. Thus, each time a load was made to pass over the
instrumented slabs, the datalogger was triggered on and off
through the laptop to record the dynamic strains generated
under the load.
6 STATIC DATA ANALYSIS
Collection of data related to variation of temperature and
strains was started from the moment the sensors were
embedded into the concrete to capture the response of
was also collected during peak summer days to record the
hardened concrete slab response during diurnal cycles of
temperature variations.
6.1 Concrete Response during Hardening
Concrete gets its strength due to the chemical reaction between
cement and water known as hydration of cement which is
an exothermic reaction. Since the thermal conductivity of
concrete is comparatively low, it acts as an insulator. Thus,
in the interior of a concrete mass, hydration can result in
3
 Kumar, Mathur & Gangopadhyay on
a rise in temperature. At the same time the exterior of the
concrete mass loses some heat so that a temperature gradient
is established. The set time of the concrete was taken as
the time when strain begins to develop with changes in
temperature. The temperature and strain of concrete during
hardening, at different depths, were monitored and following
observations were made.
●● At Silliguri, the maximum temperature rise due to
evolution of heat of hydration in the initial hours
of hardening of concrete was observed to be 53
ºC at a depth of 200 mm from the top, after nearly
13 hours of placing the concrete. The concrete
pouring temperature was 33 ºC and the ambient
temperature during laying in the evening was 38.6 ºC.
The temperature at top and bottom was observed to
be 44.1ºC and 52.1ºC respectively at the same time.
The time of final set of concrete was observed to be
6.30 hours after placement. At the time of set, the
temperature of top concrete surface was 10.6ºC less
than the temperature at the bottom of the slab. Thus,
the concrete slab was observed to have set under a
negative temperature differential of 10.6 ºC.
●● At Allahabad, the rise in temperature due to heat
evolved during hydration reaction of cement was
observed to be 54 ºC at a depth of 178 mm from
the top, after 19 hours of placing the concrete. The
concrete pouring temperature was 33 ºC. The concrete
was laid in the evening at an ambient temperature of
35 ºC. A negative temperature differential of 10.9 ºC
was observed at the time of setting of concrete.
●● t Kota, the maximum temperature rise due to heat
A
of hydration was observed to be 38.4 ºC at a depth of
165 mm from the top, after nearly 10 hours of placing
the concrete. The concrete pouring temperature was
28 ºC and the ambient temperature at the time of
laying in the evening was 32 ºC. The temperature at
the top and bottom of the slab was observed to be
33.4 ºC and 37.5 ºC at around the same time. The
time of set of concrete based on the static strains
was observed to be around 5 hours. A negative
temperature differential of 4.3 ºC was observed at the
time of setting of concrete.
6.2 Concrete Slab Response to Diurnal Temperature
Variation
Fluctuations in air temperature and intensity of solar
radiation cause volumetric changes in concrete pavement
4 highway research journal, july – december 2012
slabs. Axial and curling displacements are induced in
the slabs due to diurnal and seasonal fluctuations in
temperature. Temperature changes cause a change in length
while temperature differential between the top and bottom
of concrete slab causes the pavement slab to curl. The
curling upward or downward of slab depend on the sign
and magnitude of temperature gradient. The temperature
at slab sub-base interface varies little in comparison to the
temperature variation at slab surface. Thus, a temperature
gradient exists daily in the slab as it tends to warm during
daylight hours and cool at night.
6.2.1 Through thickness temperature variation: Variation
of temperature at different depths in the concrete pavement
slab was recorded. The maximum fluctuation in the
temperature was observed at the top. The range of variation
in temperature due to variation in ambient temperature go
on decreasing with the depth of the slab and is minimum
near the bottom of the slab. Fig. 1 shows the temperature
variation near the top and bottom of the slab with the
variation in ambient temperature. The pattern of rise and
fall of temperature near top is similar to the pattern of
variation in ambient temperature. The time of maximum and
minimum temperature at the top coincides with the time of
peak and least ambient temperature. However, this does not
happen in case of bottom temperature where the maximum
and minimum temperatures are recorded a few hours later.
Fig. 1. Temperature Variation Near Top and Bottom (Kota)
Positive and Negative Temperature Differentials
During one diurnal cycle of temperature variation at top and
bottom, the concrete pavement slabs experience both positive
and negative temperature differentials. Fig. 2 shows the
variation of temperature differential during daily cycles of
temperature variation. During a cycle of 24 hours, the condition
of zero temperature differential is reached twice – once around
9 AM in the Morning and next around 8 PM in the evening.
The maximum positive and negative temperature differential
was observed between 1.00 PM and 3.00 PM in the afternoon
and between 4.00 AM and 6 AM in the Morning, respectively.
 Rigid Pavement Response to Environmental and Traffic Loading Investigated through Instrumentation
Fig. 2. Variation of Temperature Differential
The maximum positive temperature differential during
summer was observed to be 17.1 ºC for 300 mm thick
slab at Kota, 18.9 ºC for 310 mm thick slab at Siliguri and
19.2 ºC for 320 mm thick slab at Allahabad. The corresponding
values of maximum temperature differential according to
IRC:58 are 15.8 ºC, 16.84 ºC, and 16.4 ºC for Kota, Silliguri,
and Allahabad, respectively6. Thus, the values of maximum
temperature differentials measured in the field are higher
than the values recommended by IRC:58.
The values of positive and negative temperature differentials
indicate that higher the positive temperature differential,
higher will be the value of negative temperature differential.
Thus, the phenomenon of curling upward and curling
downward of the slab is expected to be more prominent in
thicker slabs in hot weather as compared to that in thinner
slabs during cold weather.
Distribution of positive temperature differential during
12 hours of day time indicated that its average value between
12 Noon to 4 PM was 90per cent of the maximum value that
happened at some point of time in the afternoon. Between
10 AM to 12 Noon and 4 PM to 6 PM, the average temperature
differential was around 62 per cent of the maximum. During
first two hours in the morning (8 AM to 10 AM) and last two
hours in the evening (6 PM to 8 PM), it was about 25 per
cent of the maximum.
Non-linearity of Temperature Distribution
Fig. 3 shows the through thickness temperature variation at
different time of a day. As can be seen from the Fig., the
variation of temperature at different depths of the slab is not
linear as is assumed while calculating the curling stresses
in the slab. The non-linearity is least in the morning around
the time when temperature differential is least or nil. As the
temperature of the slab starts rising, non-linearity of through
thickness temperature variation also increases and becomes
maximum in the afternoon around the time of occurance
of maximum positive temperature differential in the slab.
Even at the time of almost zero temperature differential
between top and bottom of the slab, the temperature of the
core of the slab is different from that of top and bottom. The
temperature of the core of the slab is slightly less than the
highway research journal, july – december 2012
top and bottom temperature at the time of occurance of zero
temperature differential in the morning. It is slightly higher
than the top and bottom temperature at the time of occurance
of zero temperature differential in the Evening.
Fig. 3. Through Thickness Temperature Variation at Different Time of a
Day
6.2.2 Strain variation with temperature: Diurnal
fluctuations in thermal condition throughout the depth of
the concrete slab induce strains in the slab. Fig. 4 shows
this variation of strain at top and bottom. As can be seen
from the Fig., the strain both at top and bottom starts rising
with the rise in temperature after 8.30 AM in the morning
and continue to rise till it become maximum around 2.30
PM in the afternoon. This represents the heating phase of
the slab when average temperature of the whole concrete
slab rises and become maximum in the afternoon. Strains
after reaching the maximum value starts decreasing with the
decrease in surface temperature during cooling phase of the
slab and continue to decrease through evening and night to
reach the minimum value in the morning hours after which
they again start to rise.
The strains at top and bottom are positive tensile strains
during the period from around 8.30 AM in the morning to
around midnight indicating expansion of the concrete slab.
During this period, tensile strains at the top are higher that
the tensile strains at bottom which indicate the curling down
of the slab. After midnight and up to 8.30 AM in the morning,
the strains at top and bottom are negative compressive
strains indicating contraction of the slab. The compressive
strains are more at top than those at bottom which represent
the curling upward condition of the slab.
Fig. 4. Strain Variation with Zero Strain Condition at 8.30 AM
5
 Kumar, Mathur & Gangopadhyay on
6.3 Curling Stresses: Theoretical Vs Measured
Significant bending stresses can result from curling because
the self weight of concrete restrains curling. Weight
restraining effect of the self weight of the slab on temperature
induced strains can be observed through measurement of
strains. The mid slab edge will have least restraining effect
in the direction perpendicular to the edge i.e. in transverse
direction1. Theoretically, at the edge of the concrete pavement
slab, there should be no warping stress in a direction
perpendicular to the edge5. Thus, the strain measured with
the gauge placed at mid slab edge in transverse direction
may be considered as resulting from unrestrained warping
and may be used as a base for determining the amount of
restraint and hence the warping/curling stresses at mid slab
edge in longitudinal direction.
Fig. 5 shows the variation of the temperature induced strains
in transverse and longitudinal directions. As can be seen, the
strains induced in transverse direction are much larger than
the strains in longitudinal direction. The transverse strains
at the top of mid slab edge are due to unrestrained warping
while the longitudinal strains are the strains recorded under
the restraining effect of the weight of the slab. These strains
can be used for calculating the stress inducing strains in
longitudinal direction at mid slab edge.
Fig. 5. Variation of Transverse and Longitudinal Strain
Theoretical stresses were calculated by using equn. 1. This
equation is based on the assumption that the temperature
distribution is linear throughout the depth of the slab.
Stresses were calculated for two different values of modulus
of subgrade reaction, k, which is required to find the radius of
relative stiffness of the slab and Bradburry correction factors
for finite slab dimensions. Indian Roads Congress (IRC)
recommends a k-value of 417 MN/m3 over 150 mm thick
dry lean concrete base6. This is also the maximum value of ‘k’
as recommended by American Association of State Highway
and Transportation Officials (AASHTO)7. Portland Cement
Association (PCA) recommends a maximum value of 220
MN/m3 under concrete pavements8. These two values have
been used for determining the theoretical stresses.
σt = E α C ΔT / 2 (1)
where,
σt = theoretical curling stresses
E = elastic modulus of concrete (=32.6 GPa, Fig. 6 Measured Vs Theoretical Curling Stresses
6 highway research journal, july – december 2012
determined by laboratory tests)
α = coefficient of thermal expansion of concrete
(9.0 µstrains/oC, determined by laboratory test)
C = Bradbury correction factor for finite slab
ΔT = temperature difference between top and bottom of
slab
Stresses from measured strains were determined by using
equation 2 as per Teller and Sutherland5.
σm = ( εt – εl ) E / ( 1 + µ ) (2)
where,
σm = measured curling stresses
εt = strain recorded in transverse direction
εl = strain recorded in longitudinal direction
µ = Poisson’s ratio of concrete (= 0.15)
Fig. 6 shows the comparison of measured and theoretical
stresses. Measured stresses are significantly less than the
theoretical stresses during heating phase of the slab for both
the k-values. The difference between the two values starts
rising with the rise of surface temperature and becomes the
maximum when surface temperature and positive temperature
differential reach their peak values in the afternoon during
day time. At the time of maximum positive temperature
differential, measured stresses were observed to be 60 per
cent to 70 per cent of the theoretically calculated stresses.
The difference between the measured and theoretical stresses
reduces gradually in the cooling phase of the slab when
measured values, though slightly higher than the theoretical
values but still very close to it during late night and early
morning hours. The difference between the measured and
theoretical stresses may be attributed to the nonlinearity of
actual temperature distribution throughout the slab depth. The
nonlinearity of temperature distribution is most predominant
around the time of maximum positive temperature differential
during day time and not so significant during the night hours
as observed in other as well as this study (6).
 Rigid Pavement Response to Environmental and Traffic Loading Investigated through Instrumentation
7 DYNAMIC DATA ANALYSIS
Load testing of instrumented concrete slab was conducted to
capture the pavement response to vehicular loads. Pavement
response to vehicle loads was obtained through dynamic
strain gauges which were embedded into the concrete at
different locations during construction of test sections.
Since the dynamic strain sensors are located near the top and
bottom of the concrete slab both at non-tied edge and tied
edge, the load testing was performed by running the trucks
on non-tied edge as well as tied edge to see the effects of tie
bars presence on edge load strains and stresses. Load tests
were conducted under controlled conditions where known
axle loads of known axle configurations were allowed to
pass over the instrumented slabs as well as under real traffic
passing on the road sections. All the axles of the trucks used
during load testing were weighed before conducting the
tests. Fig. 7 shows the strain development at top and bottom
edge of the slab under a moving single rear axle truck.
Fig. 7. Strain Development Under Moving Single Axle Truck
7.1 Effect of Tie Bars on Edge Load Stress
Load tests were conducted to study the effect of tie bars on
edge strains produced under moving vehicular loads. Tests
were performed using different axle loads by passing them
first over the non-tied edge and then on the edge having
tie bars. Tests have shown considerable reduction of edge
strains due to the presence of tie bars at longitudinal joints.
Fig.8 (a) and Fig. 8 (b) show the bottom tensile strain
produced under a single axle truck at non-tied edge and the
tied edge of the slab respectively recorded during a test with
same axle load for both the conditions. As can be seen from
the Figs., the edge load strain produced under rear axle of
the truck reduces from18 microns at non-tied edge to 13
microns at tied edge, a reduction of around 28 per cent.
Several such tests were conducted on the instrumented slabs.
The reduction in bottom tensile strain at tied edge during the
performed tests ranged from 13.7 per cent minimum to 29.4
per cent maximum. The average reduction was observed to
be 29.0 per cent, 23.61 per cent and 22.5 per cent at Silliguri,
Kota and Allahabad test sections, respectively.
Thus, the test results of all the three test locations indicate an
average reduction of 25.0 per cent in the strains produced at
tied edge as compared to the strains at non-tied edge.
highway research journal, july – december 2012
(a)
(b)
Fig. 8. Bottom Tensile Strain at Tied and Non-Tied Edge of Slab
7.2 Effect of Load Passing Away from the Edge
Thickness design of concrete pavement slabs is based on
edge load stresses. Critical stress condition is achieved when
wheel load is placed directly over the free edge of the slab.
Practically all the wheel loads may not pass just over the
edge. If the wheel load passes even few centimeters inside
the edge, resulting load strains/stresses are expected to be
less than that when it passes just over the edge. Load tests
on instrumented slabs were performed to know the reduction
in load induced strains/stresses when wheel load is placed
25 cm inside the free edge of the slab. The tests indicated
that when the wheel load was placed 25 cm inside the slab
edge, there was a considerable reduction in edge strains. The
reduction was observed to be in the range of 22 per cent to
40 per cent with an average reduction of 31.4 per cent.
8 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The following conclusions can be drawn from the analysis
of data collected under the study:
●● Measurement of temperature and strain during
hardening phase of concrete in pavement slabs
have indicated that slabs get set under a negative
temperature differential i.e. top surface of the slab
being at lower temperature than its bottom. The value
of negative temperature differential was observed to
be 10.6 oC at Siliguri, 10.9 oC at Allahabad and be
4.3 oC at Kota. It may be noted that the instrumented
slabs at all places were laid during evening time and
thus final setting of the concrete took place during
night. This negative temperature differential has
a stress reducing effect when slabs curl downward
under positive temperature differentials. Theoretical
7
 Kumar, Mathur & Gangopadhyay on Rigid Pavement Response to Environmental and Traffic Loading
Investigated through Instrumentation
calculation of curling stresses as per Westergaard
analysis and IRC:58-2002, which is based upon
positive temperature differentials, do not take into
account the negative temperature differentials under
which slabs have been observed to have finally set.
It is recommended that it should be considered while
calculating the curling stresses.
●● Concrete slabs remain under positive and negative
temperature differentials for almost 12 hours
each during day time and night time respectively.
The maximum positive and negative temperature
differentials were observed between 1PM and 3
PM in the afternoon and 4 AM and 6 AM in the
early morning respectively. Maximum positive
temperature differential was recorded as 17.1 ºC for
30 cm thick slab at Kota, 18.9 ºC for 31 cm thick
slab at Siliguri and 19.2 ºC for 32 cm thick slab at
Allahabad. These values are slightly higher than the
values recommended by IRC:58.
●● istribution of positive temperature differential
D 9 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
during 12 hours of day time indicates that its average
value between 12 Noon to 4 PM is 90 per cent of the
maximum value that happens at some point of time
in the afternoon. Between 10 AM to 12 Noon and
4 PM to 6 PM, the average temperature differential
was around 62 per cent of the maximum. During first
2 hours in the morning (8 AM to 10 AM) and last 2
hours in the evening (6 PM to 8 PM), it was about
25per cent of the maximum. Present design methods
assume a constant value of positive temperature
differential for calculating curling stresses which is
not justified. It is recommended that different values
of temperature differential should be used for stress
calculation during different time of the day.
●● Measured curling stresses were found to be
considerably less than the theoretically calculated
stresses as per IRC:58 by using modified Westergaard
equation. It was estimated that measured stresses
are approximately 50per cent to 65per cent of the
theoretical stresses depending upon the value of the
modulus of subgrade reaction, k.
●● Load testing of tied edge and non-tied free edge of
concrete slabs indicated considerable contribution of
tie bars in reducing load induced strains and hence
load stresses at mid slab edge. Average reduction in
load induced strains and hence edge load stresses due
to the presence of tie bars was observed to be of the
order of 25per cent. Present thickness design methods
of concrete pavements do not take into account the
stress reducing effect of tie bars. It is recommended
8 highway research journal, july – december 2012
that the reduction of edge load stresses due to the
presence of tie bars at longitudinal joint between lanes
and between outer lane and tied shoulders should be
considered while calculating the edge load stresses.
●● Comparison of strains developed at the mid slab edge
when wheel loads were placed just over the free edge
with the strains that developed when wheel loads were
placed 25 cm inside the free edge revealed significant
reduction of strains in later case. Strain reduction was
found to be in the range of 22 per cent to 40 per cent
for different loads with an average reduction of 31.4
per cent
●● The conclusions drawn above are based on the
limited study carried out at three locations only. It is
recommended that further study should be taken up to
cover different climatic zones of India as envisaged
in IRC:58; different sub-base types, slab thicknesses,
and slab sizes.
Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport and Highways, Govt. of
India, New Delhi is acknowledged for sponsoring this study.
Sh. Dinesh Ganvir, Scientist; Sh. Pankaj Goel, Technical
Officer; Sh. Ashok Pant, Senior Technical Assistant, Rigid
Pavements Division, CRRI, New Delhi are thankfully
acknowledged for their assistance during field work.
REFERENCES
1. Westergaard, H. M. “Analysis of Stresses in Concrete Roads
caused by Variation of Temperature”, Public Roads, Vol. 8, No. 3,
May, 1927, pp 54-60.
2. Bradbury, Royall D. “Reinforced Concrete Pavements”, Wire
Reinforcement Institute, Washington, D. C., 1938.
3. Richardson, J. M. and Armghani, J. M. “Stress Caused by
Temperature Gradient in Portland Cement Concrete Pavements”,
Transportation Research Record 1121, TRB, National Research
Council, Washington D. C., 1987, pp. 7-13.
4. ouzid Choubane and Mang Tia, “Non-Linear Temperature
B
Gradient Effect on Maximum Warping Stresses in Rigid
Pavements”, Transportation Researech Record 1370, TRB,
National Research Council, Washington D. C., 1991, pp. 11-19.
5. Teller, L. W. and Sutherland, E. C. “The Structural Design of
Concrete Pavements”, Public Roads, Vol.16, No.9, November
1935.
6. I RC:58-2002. Guidelines for the Design of Plain Jointed Rigid
Pavement Highways. Indian Roads Congress, New Delhi, 2002.
7. AASHTO, 1993. Guide for Design of Pavement Structures.
American Association of State Highway and Transportation
Officials.
8. PCA, 1984. Thickness Design for Concrete Highways and Street
Pavements. Portland Cement Association.
 AUTOMATED DETECTION AND MEASUREMENT OF POTHOLES FROM ROAD
SURFACE VIDEO CLIPS
Huidrom Lokeshwor*, Lalit K. Das** & S K. Sud***

ABSTRACT
The assessment of potholes is an essential part of a road maintenance management system for developing repair and maintenance strategies.
Nowadays, road condition assessment is gradually being automated by using various imaging systems. However, the processing of the
collected raw visual data is still being done manually or semi-automatically in India. Existing methods of data processing are very costly,
time consuming and mostly focused on the detection and classification of cracks only. This paper presents an efficient and accurate algorithm
for automated detection and measurement of potholes out of a large volume of road surface video clips of Indian Highways. In the proposed
algorithm, potholes are detected and their features are measured automatically out of a video clip in one go, using various image processing
techniques supported by user defined decision logic. This algorithmis implemented in a Windows environment with the help of Visual Studio
2008 and OpenCV, an open source computer vision library and tested on nine different road video clips. The results show that this algorithm
can detect and measure potholes automatically with accuracy upto 94 per cent. The information extracted using the proposed algorithm can
be used for determining maintenance levels of Indian roads and taking further appropriate actions for repair and maintenance.

1 INTRODUCTION and repair requirements can be quickly, continuously and

The assessment of road surface distress is an essential part
of road management system for developing repair and
maintenance strategies to ensure a good and an effective
road network. And having a quality road network is the
foremost requirement for achieving the desired economic
growth of a country1. Potholes are the most visible and
severe forms of road surface distress, which increases the
vehicle operating costs extremely while decreasing the safety
of public. According to the book of Paterson3, a pothole is
defined as a cavity in the road surface with 150 mm or more
in average diameter and 25 mm or more in depth and this is
the minimum size of a pothole that affects the motion of a
car wheel and measures the roughness significantly. Based
on this definition, the minimum surface area of a pothole
can be estimated to 177cm2 using the formula π. (radius)2 by
assuming pothole as a circle with diameter of 150 mm.
Thus, early detection and measurement of potholes having
area equal to or more than 177cm2 is necessary for managing
road maintenance and this can be done by finding its location,
number of occurrence per km, measuring its area, extent and
severity levels3,4,5.
In India, millions of kilometers of roads need to be urgently
evaluated for their performance. The last extensive road
data collection was done in India via traditional manual
inspections during 1980s only10. Now, after a gap of three
decades, the manual technique needs to be updated to a
faster and automated evaluation system so that maintenance
accurately assessed.There are thousands of kilometres
(50,000 km approx.) of road video data of National
Highways in Central Road Research Institute (CSIR-CRRI),
collected using a road network survey vehicle (NSV)
procured under Ministry of Road Transport and Highways
(MORTH) sponsored R&D Scheme (T-5) “Development
of GIS Based National Highways Information System”.
In Central Road Research Institute (CSIR-CRRI), the
processing and analysis of these raw video data are done
offline and semi-automatically using the processing tool kit
supplied with the NSV (NSV Toolkit). This toolkit may be
considered as one of semi-automated type since the amount
of human involvement is being reduced as compared to that
of a traditional field inspection. Using the NSV Toolkit, the
detection and classification of a distress is done manually
through human intervention while video frames extraction,
reporting information and distress area measurement are
done semi-automatically. With the toolkit, a trained staff
needs to mark the distress area by drawing a rectangle with
the mouse over the distress on each frame of the video and
system measures the influenced area of the distress, i.e. the
area of rectangle. The toolkit takes many trained staffs and
many hours to analyze only one km video.
In the past, various automated potholes detection methods
had been developed by earlier researchers using 3D-based
laser scanning6, 3D-stereovision7 techniques, vibration-based
accelerometers sensors 8 and 2D-image based techniques9.
Koch and Brilakis (2011) proposed a model for potholes

The views expressed in the Paper are personal views of the author. For any quary, the author may be contacted at e-mail

* Technical Officer, Central Road Research Institute (CSIR-CRRI), Delhi, Email: hlokeshwor@gmail.com
** Ex-Head, IDD Centre, Indian Institute of Technology (IITD), Delhi, Email: lalitdas@gmail.com
*** Chief Design Engineer, IDD Centre, Indian Institute of Technology (IITD), Delhi, Email: sksud123@hotmail.com

highway research journal, july – december 2012 9

 Lokeshwor, Das & Sud on
detection in pavement images using histogram shape-based
thresholding technique. However, quantification of potholes,
which is an essential task for road maintenance management,
was not done. Since the 3D image - based methods cost
very high, the vibration-based methods lack accuracy and
reliability9 and the existing 2D image-based methods rely on
selected individual images, the development of automated
potholes detection and measurement algorithm out of a
video clip still remains as a challenge.The key challenges
before the researchers is the segmentation of potholes out of
a large noisy road video data collected in different sunlight
intensities with different images of objects (manholes,
animals, vehicles or their parts), different shadows of
various objects (vehicles, manholes, animals, trees or poles)
and different road markings (white, yellow or black).
This paper proposesan efficient and accurate algorithm
for automated detection and measurement of potholes out
of a road surface video clip.Here, a pothole is defined as
a series of interconnected small distinct (dark or bright)
regions appearing against the background of a road
surface image with a minimum standard deviation of 10.0,
minimum circularity of 0.20 and minimum average width of
60 mm. Standard deviation (std) is a measure of variation or
dispersion of pixels intensities representing a pothole in a road
image from their mean value. The value of std is computed
using the Equn.1. Circularity is a shape factor which describes
the circular shape of a pothole numerically and its value is
1 for an ideal circle and between 0 & 1 for all other shapes.
The value of circis computed from area (A) and perimeter (P)
covering the pothole, using Equn.2 while the average width
(w) of the pothole is computed using Equn.3.
In the proposed algorithm, a frame is extracted from an
input road video clip and selected its blue channel from
default 24-bit RGB format using OpenCV for applying
image processing techniques more efficiently. The blue
channel image is subjected to Median filtering, followed by
a clipping technique for noise removal. Then, the clipped
image is applied to an adaptive thresholding, followed by a
chain of morphological operations for image binarization.
Later, the binary image is applied to a connected component
labeling using contour tracing technique and Freeman chain
coding supported by user defined logic for the potholes
detection and their measurement. The results show that the
proposed algorithm can detect potholes automatically out of
a video clip based on three features of a pothole. The first
feature is the statistical visual texture as given by standard
deviation of the pixels intensities covering the pothole
from their mean valuewhile the second feature is the shape
of pothole as given by circularity and the third feature is
the dimension of pothole as given by average width. The
10
results obtained are also compared with that of two semi-
automated toolkits. One is the NSV Toolkit while another
one is ImageJSoftware17, open source medical image analysis
software developed by National Institute of Health, USA.
The information extracted using the proposed algorithm
can be used for determining maintenance levels for Indian
roads and taking further appropriate actions for repair and
maintenance related issues, such as, allocating budgets
or awarding contracts for repairing the critical roads in a
short duration of time1, 11. The results obtained are up to 94
per cent accurate.
In the next section, a brief description of road video data
collection systems used in this research programme is given.
After that the proposed algorithm for automated potholes
detection and measurement is described. Later, test results
are presented and compared with that of two existing semi-
automated toolkits. Finally, conclusions and future works
are given.
2 POTHOLES DETECTION AND
MEASUREMENT METHOD
The overall objective of this research is to test whether a large
database of road surface video clips of Indian highways that
have been captured by existing imaging systems without any
artificial lighting systems, can be utilized for the purpose of
speedy and accurate assessment of Indian roads condition.
With regard to this objective, the NSV and an omni present
passenger van have been chosen as road survey vehicles to
capture the video clips of Indian Highways. The database
of collected video clips captured is processed offline using
the proposed algorithm. The result is two different types
of video frames category viz. frames with potholes and
frames without potholes. Here, a video frame belongs to
frames with potholes category if the frame contains at least
one pothole, otherwise the video frame belongs to frames
without potholes category.The potholes in the former
category are tagged with a different color and measurement
information is reported in a printable format. The results are
compared with the current methods practiced in the field for
the evaluation of the proposed method.
2.1 Road Video Data Collection Systems
First imaging system used in this study is the pavement
video imaging module in the NSV while the second one is
just a Kodak easyshare digital camera held manually in a
running Tata Magic Passenger Van.The NSV continuously
captures road surface video clips using two monochrome
FireWirebased cameras in distance mode (every interval of
3 metres). The two progressive scan digital cameras are fitted
in the back of a Tata Sumo and are synchronized with the
highway research journal, july – december 2012
 Automated Detection and Measurement of Potholes from Road Surface Video Clips
triggers provided by a distance measuring instrument(DMI)
fitted to the rear wheel of the vehicle. One video frame
covers 3m length by 2.5 m width of the road with a
resolution of 1280X960 pixels. Each square pixel covers
2.5mm×2.5 mm.
Using a Kodak easyshare digital camera, the road visual
data of State Highway No.1 in Manipur state of India, are
recorded as video clips in continuous mode (time mode) by
sitting in the rear sit of a running Tata Magic passenger van.
This digital camera records video clips with a resolution of
640 x 480 in 24-bit RGB color format. One video frame
covers approximately 2.5m width by 2.0m length of the
road surface with each pixel covering 4mm X 4mm. Use
of video clips recorded using such an economical common
digital camera without any extra costs of DMI, vehicle, data
acquisition system and laptop or personal computer is also
being tested in this research study for automated potholes
detection and measurement. This method may be useful for
developing repair and maintenance strategies with minimum
cost at regional or project levels.
2.2 Potholes Detection and Measurement Algorithm
The automated potholes detection and measurement algorithm
proposed in this study is developed for automated detection of
frames with potholes as well as measurement of potholes from
a noisy road video clip stored in a hard drive. This algorithm is
able to group all the frames of a video into two main categories
viz. Frames with Potholes and Frames without Potholes,
based on user defined decision logic. Using this algorithm,
a video frame is grouped into the frames without potholes
category if total area of objects in the image computed using
this algorithm is less than 177cm2 or the objects do not satisfy
three criteria mentioned in our potholes definition (section
1). The remaining video frames are grouped into frames with
potholes category. A video frame is considered to the frames
with potholes category if total area of objects is greater or
equal to 177cm2 and there is at least one object that satisfy
the three criteria mentioned in our potholes definition. The
authors choose 177cm2 to be the minimum cut off limit, since
it is the minimum area of a pothole that affects the motion of
a car wheel and measures roughness significantly3. The area
of 177cm2 which is used in the decision logic can be modified
as per the actual requirement in context of road repair and
maintenance.However, the authors have been found that
177cm2 as the most significant threshold value to identify
potholes out of a noisy road video clip and this threshold
value has been determined by experimenting on 120 road
images with potholes.
The algorithm which is developed for the automated
detection of frames with potholes as well as measurement of
highway research journal, july – december 2012
potholes out of a video clip is listed below:
1. Input a road video clip of road surface;
2. Extract the first frame;
3. Convert its default 24-bit depth format into 8-bit depth
format by selecting its blue channel (section 2.2.1);
4. Apply median filtering for image enhancement (section
2.2.2);
5. Apply clipping technique to remove unwanted features
such as white road markings and white spots (section
2.2.3);
6. Apply adaptive thresholding to convert clipped enhanced
image into binary image with black pixels representing
objects of interest (2.2.4);
7. Apply morphological erosion to add black pixels to
bridge the gaps in binary image (section 2.2.5);
8. Apply morphological dilation to remove isolated black
pixels or their small cluster (section 2.2.6);
9. Apply morphological erosion again to add black pixels
to the binary image;
10. Apply connected component labeling and chain coding
techniques (section 2.2.7) to count the number of objects
or region of interest and estimate each objects area (A)
and perimeter (P);
11. Filter out all the objects whose A<177cm2 (Non-Critical
Objects) in the binary image;
12. Determine std, circ and w of each remaining objects
(objects whose A >=177cm2);
13. Classify each object into two types: (a) Potholes, if std>=
10.0 &circ>= 0.20 & w>= 60mm; (b) Non-Potholes, if
otherwise (section 2.2.8);
14. Store the corresponding extracted frame along with the
extracted information in a folder;
15. Repeat steps 3 to 14 for all remaining video frames;
16. End.
Various image processing techniques applied in the proposed
algorithm are discussed in the Sections 2.2.1 to 2.2.7.
2.2.1 8-Bit Depth Format Conversion
The original video frame extracted from a video clip is in the
RGB 24-bit depth (24-bit per pixel) format. Each channel (Red,
Green and Blue) is represented by 8-bit array and their pixel value
ranges from 0(black) to 255(white). Thus, the blue channel image
which contains more detail information is selected. This makes
the frame compatible with our image processing techniques and
saves memory space and processing time.
11
 Lokeshwor, Das & Sud on
2.2.2 Median Filtering
The blue channel image needs to be enhanced or smoothened
before they can be used for analysis. For this, median
filtering12,13 is applied to the gray scale (8-bit depth) image.
There may be many reasons for doing smoothening but
it is done here mainly to reduce noise or camera artifacts
developed during road image acquisition. This filter
replaces each pixel by the median or middle pixel in a
square neighborhood around the centre pixel. The size of the
neighborhood used for filtering is 5X5 pixel. Other technique
like simple blurring that replaces each pixel by an average
pixel value can be sensitive to noisy images, especially
images with large isolated outliner points, sometimes called
“shot noise”. Large differences in even a small number of
points can cause a noticeable movement in the average value.
However, median filtering is able to ignore the outliners by
selecting the middle points.
2.2.3 Clipping Values
Besides noises or camera artifacts, there are still unwanted
features present in the road frames, such as, road markings
or white spots. These unwanted features need to be removed
before segmentation. For this, all the pixel intensity values
above the average value of the enhanced image are clipped
to its average value. This is because most of the values of
pixels representing these road markings or white spots are
found to be above the average value of the image and an
average value of an image represents the most occurring
pixel value. If clipping values technique is not applied then
some of these features will be falsely detected as potholes.
2.2.4 Adaptive Thresholding
It is not wise to apply many layers of preprocessing steps
since it will slow automation of image processing and also
waste some valuable information. The main objective at this
stage is only to determine which pixel belongs to object or
region of interest. To achieve this segmentation,an adaptive
thresholding technique based on the weighted mean12, 14 is
applied. This is a modified threshold technique in which the
threshold level is itself variable. The threshold level is set
on a pixel by pixel basis by computing a weighted mean of
a neighborhood region around each pixel location minus a
constant. All the pixels in the region are weighted equally.
By trial and error method, the optimal neighborhood region
and the best constant value are determined for a frame
resolution of 1280 X 960 which covers an area of 3m X 2.5m
as well as for a frame resolution of 640 X 480 which covers
2.5m X 2m. Global thresholding is not applied here since
getting an optimum threshold is very difficult for large set of
12 highway research journal, july – december 2012
images, collected without any artificial lighting systems due to
varied conditions. Other techniques of segmentation, such as
histogram based thresholding and edge detection techniques
are not able to give reliable results due to the highly textured
or uneven nature of road surface, which resulted in highly
noisy road images18. However, adaptive thresholding based
on weighted mean is found to be very useful for images
that are characterized by strong illumination or reflectance
gradient as a result of variation of illumination. Besides,
this technique is also able to remove uniformly distributed
shadows or image parts of some unwanted features present
in the images while saving computation time.
2.2.5 Morphological Erosion Operation
By applying adaptive thresholding, the grayscale image is
converted into a binary image with black pixels representing
objects which may be a distress or noise while white pixels
representing the background. Further processing of this
binary image is required for removing noise, mapping
the actual area of the objects as measured on the road and
extracting their visual properties. For this purpose, a series of
morphological operations is applied followed by connected
component labeling and chain coding techniques. Then, the
shape and size of objects are measured from the binarized
image while the visual texture of each object is calculated
from the original image by mapping the co-ordinates of
objects on the binarized image.
Morphological operations, such as, erosion, dilation etc., can
be used for different purposes like removing noise, isolating
individual elements, joining disparate elements and finding
intensity bumps or holes or gradients in an image12. Erosion
operation is used in the proposed method to join the disparate
elements or bridge the gaps between black pixels (object
pixels). Basically, this operator adds more black pixels to
a binary image. The action of this operator is equivalent
to computing a local minimum over the area of the kernel.
As the kernel is scanned over the image, it computes the
minimum pixel value overlapped by the kernel and replaces
the image pixel under the anchor point of the kernel with
that minimum value. This operator is iterated a limited
number of times using a square 3X3 kernel with the anchor
at its centre, just before the dilation operation (discussed in
Section 2.2.6), as well as just after the dilation, so that more
detail and useful information is retained in the image.
2.2.6 Morphological Dilation Operation
After the erosion operation has been applied, isolated
black pixels or their small clusters which constitute noise
are developed in the binary image.This noise needs to be
removed. For this, dilation operation12is applied, which is
 Automated Detection and Measurement of Potholes from Road Surface Video Clips
basically addition of white pixels to a binary image. The
action of the dilation operator is equivalent to computing
a local maximum over the area of the kernel. As the kernel
is scanned over the image, it computes the maximum pixel
value overlapped by the kernel and replaces the image pixel
under the anchor point of the kernel with that maximum
value. By iterating this operation a limited number of times
using same kernel used in erosion, some of the isolated black
pixels or their small clusters are removed away without
affecting the larger black regions. To map the actual shape
and size of the segmented object with physical road, total
number of iterations that has been eroded throughout the
processing must be dilated back.
2.2.7 Connected Component Labeling and Chain Coding
After applying all the above image processing techniques, an
image containing probable objects of interests is obtained.
To simplify the process as well as save time, all the objects
whose area are less than 177cm2 (minimum cut off limit)
are filtered out and called them non-critical objects (NCOs).
The authors choose 177cm2 to be the minimum cut off limit
since it is the minimum area of a pothole that affects the
motion of a car wheel and measures roughness significantly3.
Then, some information are extracted from the remaining
bigger objects, which are called as critical objects (COs).
This minimum size of critical objects of our interest can
be decided in accordance with the actual requirements of a
concerned authority. For extracting the required information,
a connected component labeling algorithm using contour
tracing technique15 is applied. Unlike traditional two-pass
algorithms, labeling is done here in a single pass over
the image, while contour points are revisited more than
once but not more than a limited value. This technique is
applied here since the computational speed is faster than
other traditional connected component labeling techniques.
Using this technique and the 8-connected Freeman chain
coding technique16, the number of COs present in each
image has been counted, and their area (A), perimeter (P),
circ, maximum dimension (D) and average width (w) are
estimated from the binary image using Equn. (1-6), while std
of pixels intensities from their mean value (µ) is computed
from the original image by mapping the corresponding
pixels co-ordinates of the CO (binary image).
A (m2) = (Number of pixels in CO) * pixel size (m2); (4)
P (m) = {π/8 (1+ √2) (ne+ ne)} * pixel length (m); (5) to illustrate the effectiveness of the logic.
highway research journal, july – december 2012
Where, ne and no are number of even and odd Freeman chain elements respectively;
D(m) = {P + √ (P2 – 16*A)} / 4; if (P2 – 16*A) > 0;
= P / 4; if (P2 – 16*A) <= 0; (6)
2.2.8 Decision Logic for Potholes Identification
The extracted information such as std, circ and w are
compared with user defined decision logic for the automated
identification of potholes out of short listed COs. This
decision logic has been developed by experimenting on
120 numbers of video images having potholes.The images
with potholes used for the experiments have been selected
randomly to determine the deciding range of values or
significant thresholds for std, circ and w.
In this decision logic, a CO is classified using Eq. (7).
In the developed logic, the average width of 60 mm is the
minimum limit of average width that has been computed
from area and perimeter of a pothole in a video image, using
the developed algorithm. This computed average width
may be sometimes more or less than that of actual width
of a pothole in a road surface due to the presence of noise,
developed automatically during the course of various image
processing stages.This dimension has been used in the
proposed method for automated identification of potholes
in a noisy road video image. However, this method has not
attempted to measure the actual width of a pothole.
The procedure for automated detection and measurement of
cracks is illustrated in Fig.1 to 2. Here, images in column
(a) are original images; column (b) are binary images B
after median filtering, clipping and adaptive thresholding;
column (c) are binary images BE after erosion; column (d)
are binary images BED after dilation; column (e) are binary
images BEDE after erosion; column (f) are detected potholes
with a minimum size of 177cm2 in binary image BEDE
whereblack color represents non-critical objects (NCO), gray
color represents critical objects (CO) with dark gray color
represents non-potholes (NP),bright gray color represents
critical potholes (P) and brightest gray color represents
biggest critical object (BCO); and column (g) are extracted
information reporting all the required measurements with
POTHOLE_REPORT represents information of detected
potholes using Eqn.7, NON-POTHOLE_REPORT
represents information of detected non-potholes using Eqn.7;
BIGGEST_CO_REPORT represents extracted properties
of the biggest critical object (BCO) based on which the
decision logic has been developed. This BCO report is just
13
 Lokeshwor, Das & Sud on

Fig. 1 (a) Fig. 1 (b) Fig. 2 (c) Fig. 2 (d)

Fig. 1 (c) Fig. 1 (d)

Fig. 2 (e) Fig. 2 (f)

Fig. 1 (e) Fig. 1 (f)

Fig. 2 (g)

Fig.2 Procedure to detect and measure potholes using the

proposed method in video image with potholes and cracks

3 TEST RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Fig.1 Procedure to detect and measure potholes using the proposed For testing the performance of the proposed algorithm,
method in video image with potholes nine numbers of video clips has been selected randomly
from a database of video clips collected using two different
imaging systems (discussed in Section 2.1). These video
clips have all the varieties of features that occur on a road
e.g. road markings, shadows / images of trees, and vehicle
ortheir parts, distress like potholes, cracks, water bleeding,
patching.The detailed analysis reports whichhave been
obtained by implementing the proposed algorithm in a
Windows environment (BENQ Joybook mini-Laptop with
Intel Atom CPU 1.60 GHz, 1 GB RAM and OS XP SP3) is
listed below in Table 1 to 2 and Graph 1 to 2.
Fig. 2 (a) Fig. 2 (b)

14 highway research journal, july – december 2012

 Automated Detection and Measurement of Potholes from Road Surface Video Clips

Total processing time taken by the proposed algorithm on

video clips having 57 to 432 frames has been found to be
only3 to 19 minutes depending upon the video frame size and
the total number of critical objects in the video. The same
video clips when analyzed using the NSV Processing Toolkit
has taken around 99 to 829 minutes. Thus, a considerable
amount of time, money and manpower resources can be
saved using the proposed algorithm. These savings will
be more if we can afford a higher speed computer with a
largermemory at a little extra cost.

Furthermore, the proposed method has been able to retrieve

Graph 1. Accuracy of proposed algorithm in terms of error (per cent)
frames with potholes with accuracy up to 94 per cent for 8
video clips out of 9 video clips tested. Some examples of results
obtained by applying the proposed algorithm are illustrated
in Fig.3 to 18. However, the authors have observed some
false detection in one of video clip under tested (NSV.3) and
this has been mostly due to presence of shadows or images
of black markings, manholes, poles, vehicles and their parts
in the video clips. Some of these features when distributed
non-uniformly over the road surfaces, their shapes and sizes
look very similar to that of potholes in the video images.
Such examples are illustrated in Fig.5.

The three maximum permissible maintenance levels based

Graph 2. Efficiency comparision between proposed algorithm
and NSV toolkit
on potholes for Indian highways given in the committee
report1,11 can also be determined using the proposed method
by applying Eqn.(8) or Eqn. (9).
Per centage of frames with potholes (per cent)
= (No. of frames with potholes / TNF)*100; (8)
Number of potholes per km = Sum of total number of
potholes in each frame / RL; (9)

Table 1 Comparisons of evaluation done using the proposed method and NSV Toolkit
Video clips TNF Proposed method NSV Toolkit Error (per Time saving
cent) (min)
No. of No. of Time No. of No. of FPt No. of No. of Time
FNPour FPour taken FNPt Falses Falses in taken
(min) in FNPour FPour (min)
NSV.1 57 53 4 3 54 3 0 1 102 1.7 102-3 = 99
NSV.2 300 294 6 19 300 0 0 6 525 2.0 525-19 = 506
NSV.3 200 116 84 13 200 0 0 84 398 42.0 398-13 = 385
NSV.4 300 292 8 16 286 4 8 2 594 3.3 594-16 = 578
NSV.5 200 170 30 10 164 36 9 3 396 6.0 396-10 = 386
Color.1 225 32 193 7 46 179 0 8 431 3.5 431-7 = 424
Color.2 370 231 139 9 233 137 3 5 701 2.2 701-9 = 692
Color.3 432 377 55 11 374 58 4 1 840 1.2 840-11 = 829
Color.4 182 30 152 5 34 148 0 4 355 2.2 355-5 = 350
Note:- Tnf = Total Number Of Video Frames; Fp = Frames With Potholes, Fnp = Frames Without Potholes;
Error(Per Cent) = {(No. False Detections In Fpour + No. False Detections In Fnpour)/ Tnf}*100;

highway research journal, july – december 2012 15

 Lokeshwor, Das & Sud on

Where, RL = Road length in km covered by the

video clip = TNF * Length of one frame in km;

Table 2 Comparisons of critical potholes area

measured using our method, NSV Toolkitand ImageJ.

Frames Frame Total critical potholes area Error12 Error13

with area (m2) (per (per
potholes (m )
2
cent) cent)
ImageJ NSV Proposed
(Manual) Toolkit Algorithm
(1) (2) (3)
Fig. 3 (1) Fig. 3 (2)
Fig.1 4.915 0.296 0.599 0.307 102.4 3.7
Fig.2 7.680 0.046 0.124 0.044 169.6 4.3
Fig.4 (1) 4.915 0.134 0.194 0.156 44.8 16.4
Fig.4 (2) 4.915 0.344 0.795 0.353 122.7 2.6
Fig.4 (3) 4.915 0.361 0.787 0.408 118.0 13.0
Fig.4 (4) 4.915 0.174 0.301 0.168 72.9 3.5
Fig.4 (5) 4.915 0.266 0.538 0.314 102.2 18.0
Note:- Error12 = [{potholes area (1) – potholes area (2)} / potholes
area (1)] * 100; Fig. 3 (3) Fig. 3 (4)
Error13 = [{potholes area (1) – potholes area (3)} / potholes
area (1)] * 100;

Critical potholes area measured using the proposed algorithm

and the NSV Toolkit have been compared manually with that
of ImageJ17 for 7 frames with potholes and the results are
shown in Table 2.Using ImageJ, area of a pothole has been
obtained in terms of pixels by fitting polygons or freehand
selections manually over a distress area in the video image.
The comparisons show that potholes area measured using
the proposed algorithm and ImageJ have less error than that Fig. 4 (1a) Fig. 4 (1b)
of error calculated for NSV Toolkit. The error calculated
for potholes area measured using ImageJ and the proposed
algorithmis found to be varying from 2.6 per cent to 18.0per
cent while the error is found to be varying from 44.8per
cent to 169.6per centwhen measured using ImageJ and NSV
Toolkit. This is mainly because theNSV Toolkitmeasures the
area of the rectangle that encloses a pothole instead of actual
area of the pothole on a video image. And the rectangle that
encloses a pothole always consists of some non-potholing
area. Thus, the potholing area estimated by drawing
rectangle over a pothole using NSV Toolkit is always more
than that of the actual potholes area on road depending
upon the geometrical patterns of potholes. Examples of
results obtained using proposed algorithm are illustrated in
Fig.3 to 5 where images in column (a) are original video
images, column (b) are processed images using the proposed
algorithm and column (c) are reports showing all required
Fig. 4 (1c)
measurements.

16 highway research journal, july – december 2012

 Automated Detection and Measurement of Potholes from Road Surface Video Clips

Fig. 4 (2a) Fig. 4 (2b)

Fig. 4 (5b) Fig. 4 (5c)

Fig. 4 (2c) Fig. 4 (3a) Fig. 5 (1a) Fig. 5 (1b)

Fig. 5 (2a) Fig. 5 (2b)

Fig. 4 (3b) Fig. 4 (3c)
Fig. 5 Examples of Processed video frames with falsely detected Patholes

4 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK

In this Paper, resulting from doctoral research of the first

author, an efficient and accurate algorithm for automated
detection and measurement of potholes from road surface
video clips using various image processing techniques
has been presented.The proposed algorithm has been
Fig. 4 (4a) Fig. 4 (4b) implemented in a Windows environment and tested on nine
road video clips captured by two different imaging systems
without any artificial lighting systems.

The results obtained by applying the proposed algorithm have

been compared with that of two existing toolkits viz. NSV
Processing Toolkit and ImageJ. The results have been found
to be up to 94per cent accurate for video clips without many
non-uniformly distributed features such as water bleeding,
shoulder defects, black color road markings and images of
Fig. 4 (4c) Fig. 4 (5a) manholes or vehicle parts. Applying the proposed algorithm,
Fig. 4 Examples of Processed video frames with truly detected Patholes potholes can bedetected out of a video clip in one go and

highway research journal, july – december 2012 17

 Lokeshwor, Das & Sud on Automated Detection and Measurement of Potholes from Road Surface Video Clips
their locations, number of occurrences, areas, and extent
(relative area) can be measured automatically while saving
considerable time, money and manpower resources.This
algorithm can be readily applied in professional practice and
effectively to meet the challenges faced by Indian highway
professionals both for road maintenance management and
evaluation of the current health condition of the national
highways. The method is worthy of field implementation and
only field testing will demonstrate its novelty and innovative
character. There is potential in developing an automated road
surface imaging system which is optimally designed for the
described method to get even far better results.
5 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of this
research by MORTH and CSIR-CRRI, particularly Professor
S.K. Brahmachari, Director General (CSIR), Professor
Gangopadhyay, Director (CSIR-CRRI) and D.C. Sharma,
Head, Instrumentation Division (CSIR-CRRI). Furthermore,
the authors would like to acknowledge the support of IIT
Delhi and thank Professor K.K.Biswas for his illuminating
lectures in the field of Digital Image Analysis which the first
author had the honour to attend.
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 REINFORCED CEMENT CONCRETE PAVEMENT FOR VILLAGE ROADS IN
ALLUVIAL REGION: A SUSTAINABLE OPTION
R.K. Srivastava* S.K. Duggal** & K.K. Shukla***

abstract

Reinforced cement concrete pavement with reinforcement at top and bottom is designed for village roads in alluvial regions.
The concrete grade used in pavement is M 20. Design curves for village roads are presented. It is observed that for low volume
traffic roads, M20 grade is found to be suitable. Proposed RCC pavement is suitable for sub-grade having low modulus of
reaction. The proposed RCC pavement comes out to be economical in comparison to conventional rigid pavement.
1 Introduction result in better and long performing roads at a much lesser
cost.
Village roads in general have low volume of traffic, consisting
mostly of rural transport vehicles, like, agricultural tractors/ Rigid pavement comes out to be a better alternative to
trailers, light goods vehicles, buses, animal drawn vehicles, flexible pavement where the soil strength is poor, aggregate
motorized two-wheelers and cycles. Some of the village are costly and the drainage conditions are bad but they
roads may also have light and medium trucks carrying demand a high degree of professional expertise at the design
sugarcane, timber, quarry material, etc. Due to shifting of stage, construction and maintenance besides high initial
industries towards villages there is an increase in volume cost. The guidelines have been developed by Indian Roads
of traffic on village roads. It necessitates providing the Congress (IRC) for the design and construction of cement
cost effective solution of connectivity to the villages. As of concrete pavements for village roads in year 2004, named as
now, flexible pavements are in use for village connectivity IRC: SP: 62-20047. For low traffic volume roads, i.e. village
program because of low initial construction cost. But, high roads and streets, a rural road manual has been introduced by
cost of maintenance, sensitivity to water logging and lack IRC where cement concrete roads are preferred in populated
of institutional set up for the maintenance, the village roads areas/streets to meet the problems of maintenance due to
deteriorate very fast, especially in alluvial regions. As most poor drainage, etc. M 30 grade concrete is being used in
of northern parts of India belong to alluvial region having the cement concrete road. The state of Punjab has already
soft soil and poor drainage conditions, lot of expenditure is adopted cement concrete pavement in villages. In year 2008,
being incurred every year to maintain the flexible pavements state of Uttar Pradesh opted for the construction of rigid
in their congenial condition. This necessitates the use of pavement for village roads/streets in Ambedkar villages. In
cement concrete road, a better option from climatic and near future the states of northern India that fall in alluvial
environmental considerations. The planners and engineers regions, facing the problem of poor sub-grade and water
are bound to think about the option of rigid pavement as a logging will be forced to adopt rigid pavements.
substitute of flexible pavement for village roads.
Rigid pavements consist of a number of joints to reduce the
Different options have been tried for village roads depending temperature stresses and are one of the principal causes of
upon the soil and climatic considerations. Visser and Hall1,2 discomfort and inconvenience to the users and traffic. IRC:
developed a concept of cell-filled pavement termed as flexible 101-19888 specifies technique of continuously reinforced
concrete pavement for village roads. Pandey3,4 investigated concrete pavement which reduces the need of expansion
cell filled concrete for village roads. Sahu et al.5 investigated and contraction joints. This permits longer slab lengths with
the structural behavior of cell-filled concrete pavement. improved riding quality and reduced maintenance cost than
Sinha et al.6 presented the concept of white topping as a that for the plain cement concrete pavement (PCP). The
rehabilitation measure by strengthening of deteriorated conventional Continuously Reinforced Concrete Pavement
bituminous pavements and observed that white topping will (CRCP) requires per centage of steel 0.7 to 1.0 per cent

The views expressed in the Paper are personal views of the author. For any quary, the author may be contacted at e-mail
* Chief Engineer Head Quarter 1, UPPWD, Lucknow
** Professor, Civil Engineering Department,
*** Professor, Applied Mechanics Department
} MNNIT, Allahabad

highway research journal, july – december 2012 19

 Srivastava, Duggal & Shukla on

of concrete cross section. The per centage of steel can be

reduced to about half, i.e., 0.4 to 0.5per cent if elastic joints
are provided; this also reduces the random cracks that may
occur in conventional CRCP slab. Since the reinforcement is
(ii) At interior,
provided in middle of the slab the structural efficiency does
not increase.

It is observed that rigid pavements constructed in past

show distress after few years due to temperature, moisture, (iii) At corner,
environment and shrinkage. Further, closely spaced joints
are a cause of inconvenience to the traffic. Two layered
reinforcement in the pavement may be considered to check
the development of cracks as well as to increase the spacing Stresses due to temperature:
of joints to facilitate smooth and comfortable flow of the
traffic. The possibility of deriving advantage of increasing (i) At edge,
the flexure strength of the pavement can also be studied.

In the paper an attempt is made to address these problems. (ii) At interior,

The grade of concrete is proposed to be reduced to M 20 for
reinforced concrete pavement. A detailed study of reinforced
cement concrete pavements with reinforcement at top and
bottom instead of the provision of it at middle of the pavement (iii) At corner,
slab (as per IRC: 101-1988) is done to minimize the number
of joints for smooth riding and to assess savings against
conventional design practice. Pavement constructed with
M 20 grade concrete and reinforcement at top and bottom
yields an overall economy of 4per cent compared to that Where,
with plane cement concrete of M 30 grade. For low volume
Radius of load contact,
traffic roads, village roads or streets, M 20 grade concrete
emerges to be more suitable because of easy implementation
of specifications for concreting with traditional methods and Radius of equivalent distribution of pressure,
is economical as well.

2 DESIGN OF RCC PAVEMENT

The proposed type of pavement has been designed for single Radius of relative stiffness,
wheel load placed on edges and reinforcement provided
at 40 mm below the top and above the bottom of the slab,
The design of reinforced cement concrete pavement for
respectively. Reinforcement is calculated for CRCP based
village roads in alluvial regions of Uttar Pradesh with lean
on consideration of frictional stresses. Stresses due to wheel
concrete as base is done. Two cases are considered; (i) 30
load and temperature variation are obtained on the basis of
kN single wheel load and pavement width 3.0 m and, (ii) 51
provisions of IRC: SP: 62-2004. An equivalent section of
kN single wheel load and pavement width 3.75 m. Design
RCC pavement in terms of concrete is obtained by replacing
parameters are:
the steel area by equivalent concrete area which equals
modular ratio times the steel area. The design steps are
similar to PCP as given below. It is observed that critical Tyre pressure = 0.50 N/mm2 for 30 kN
condition occurs at edges. single wheel load

(a) Stresses due to wheel load: = 0.70N/mm2 for 51 kN

(i) At edge, single wheel load

20 highway research journal, july – december 2012

 Reinforced Cement Concrete Pavement for Village Roads in Alluvial Region: A Sustainable Option

Temperature gradient = 12.5 oC for pavement modified k value is taken as 16.6 kg/cm2/cm and 5.6 kg/cm2/
width 3.0 m cm, respectively (IRC: 58-20029). In case of RCC pavement
over existing base of WBM/BOE/GSB, the modulus of sub-
= 13.1 oC for pavement grade reaction k based on field observations of Benkelman
width 3.75 m beam deflection is taken as 8 kg/cm2/cm. The design
parameters are summarized in Table 1.
Modulus of Elasticity = 30,000 N/mm2
(EPQC) The stresses in the RCC pavement with reinforcement at
top and bottom are calculated at edge, corner and interior
Poisson’s ratio = 0.15 of the pavements and the results are shown in Tables 2-3.
Maximum joint = 50 m The stresses in RCC pavement on WBM/BOE/GSB are
spacing (L) calculated and shown in Tables 4-5. It can be seen that the
RCC pavement with M 20 grade concrete is sustainable for
Design life = 20 years village roads. The critical condition occurs when wheel is
placed at edges during the day time just in noon/afternoon.
Coefficient of thermal = 10.0*10-6/0c The cost comparisons of the proposed RCC pavements
expansion shown in Figs. 1-4 are made with plain concrete pavement
(PCP) and tabulated in Table 6-9. It is seen that savings for
The amount of reinforcement is calculated using the
proposed RCC pavement are meager, but the performance
following relations: will be better than the PCP since the former will take care of
Area of steel (cm2), the temperature stresses and cracks will be arrested.
The proposed RCC pavements were constructed at three places
Spacing of reinforcing bars on each face (cm),
to observe their performance. First, Lucknow-Nagram road
Number of bars on each face, to Sarthua link road 3.0 m width and of 15 cm thickness was
constructed in the year 2004 for PMGSY with reinforcement at
Equivalent thickness of the RCC top and bottom. Sub-grade of 1:3:6 PCC was of 10 cm thickness.
pavement (cm), Second, Pratapgarh-Jathwara-Lal Gopalganj road 7.0 m width
and of 20 cm thickness was constructed in the year 2007 with
reinforcement at top and bottom. Sub-grade was provided with
Frictional stresses (kg/cm2), WBM/BOE. The third, Sakutiya-Byodhan-Khurd Road 3.0
m width and of 20 cm thickness was constructed in year 2009
Total stresses in the concrete at the with reinforcement at top and bottom. Sub-grade was provided
pavement edges, with WBM/BOE. The performances of these RCC pavements
The stresses are calculated in the equivalent section. The were observed and it has been found that there are no visible
modulus of sub-grade reaction k based on field observation cracks on the surface of the pavements and there are no signs of
of CBR value is taken as 4.2 kg/cm2/cm and 2.1 kg/cm2/ distress. The RCC pavements observed for their performance
cm. The pavement is laid over lean concrete and hence the are shown in Figs. 5(a to c).

Table 1 Design Parameters

S. Width of Modulus of Sub-grade Single Axle Thickness of Thickness of Base Layer (cm) Permissible
No. Pavement (m) Reaction, k (kg/cm2/cm) Load (kN) PQC (cm) Stress (N/mm2)

1. 3.0 16.6 30 12.5 10.0 LC 3.75

2. 3.75 16.6 51 16.0 10.0 LC 3.75
3. 3.0 5.6 30 12.5 10.0 LC 3.75
4. 3.75 5.6 51 16.0 10.0 LC 3.75
5. 3.0 8.0 30 15.0 11.0 BOE/15.0GSB/ 15.0WBM 3.75
6. 3.75 8.0 51 17.5 11.0 BOE/15.0GSB/ 15.0WBM 3.75

highway research journal, july – december 2012 21

 Srivastava, Duggal & Shukla on

Table 2 Stresses at Different Locations in RCC Pavement (Axle load: 60 kN).

S. Location Modulus of Sub- Effective k Over 10 cm Stress (N/mm2) Total Stress (N/mm2)
No. grade Reaction, k LC (kg/cm2/cm) Temperature Load Friction Temperature
(kg/cm2/cm) tºc 0.7 tºc tºc 0.7 tºc
1. Edge 4.2 16.6 1.77 1.24 2.68 -0.9 3.55 3.02
2. Interior 4.2 16.6 2.08 1.46 1.67 -0.9 2.85 2.23
3. Corner 4.2 16.6 0.39 0.27 2.40 -0.9 1.89 1.77
4. Edge 2.1 5.6 1.77 1.24 3.13 -0.9 4.00 3.47
5. Interior 2.1 5.6 2.08 1.46 1.92 -0.9 3.10 2.48
6. Corner 2.1 5.6 0.34 0.24 3.0 -0.9 1.79 1.69

Table 3 Stresses at Different Locations in RCC Pavement (Axle load: 102 kN).
Modulus of Sub- Stress (N/mm2) Total Stress (N/mm2)
S. Effective k Over 10 cm Temperature Temperature
Location grade Reaction, k
No. LC (kg/cm2/cm) Load Friction
(kg/cm2/cm) tºc 0.7 tºc tºc 0.7 tºc
1. Edge 4.2 16.6 1.93 1.35 2.72 -0.9 3.75 3.15
2. Interior 4.2 16.6 2.27 1.59 1.66 -0.9 3.03 2.35
3. Corner 4.2 16.6 10.4 0.28 2.50 -0.9 2.03 1.88
4. Edge 2.1 5.6 1.93 1.35 3.14 -0.9 4.17 3.59
5. Interior 2.1 5.6 2.27 1.59 1.89 -0.9 3.26 2.58
6. Corner 2.1 5.6 0.35 0.24 2.9 -0.9 2.35 2.24

Table 4 Stresses in 12.5 cm RCC Pavement on BOE/GSB/WBM (Axle load: 60 kN = 8kg/cm2/cm).

S. Stress (N/mm2) Total Stress (N/mm2)

Location Temperature Temperature
No. Load Friction
tºc 0.7 tºc tºc 0.7 tºc
1. Edge 1.79 1.33 2.75 -0.9 3.64 3.18
2. Interior 2.15 1.5 1.38 -0.9 2.63 1.98
3. Corner 0.35 0.25 2.13 -0.9 1.58 1.48
Table 5 Stresses in 17.5 cm RCC Pavement on BOE/GSB/WBM (Axle load: 102 kN = 8kg/cm2/cm).

S. Stress (N/mm2) Total Stress (N/mm2)

Location Temperature Load Friction Temperature
No. tºc 0.7 tºc tºc 0.7 tºc
1. Edge 1.95 1.36 2.87 -0.9 3.92 3.33
2. Interior 2.25 1.57 1.74 -0.9 3.09 2.41
3. Corner 0.36 0.25 2.68 -0.9 2.14 2.03

Table 6 Per km. Cost Comparison of PCP and Reinforced Concrete Pavement (Pavement width 3.0 m Wheel Load 30kN). (Using
M 30 Concrete in PCP and M 20 in RCC Pavement as PQC and Base as LC)

Plain Concrete Pavement Composite Cement Concrete Pavement

S.
No. Item Rate
Measurement Qty. Amount Measurement Qty. Rate (Rs.) Amount
(Rs.)
1. M 30 Grade Cement 4913
1x1000x3.0x0.15 450 m3
Concrete per m3 2210850.00
2. M 20 Cement Concrete 1x1000x3.0x0.125 375 m3 4555 per m3 1708125.00
1000 226 3000 per 1000
3. Number of Joints Joint 678000.00 21 No. 3000 per Joint 63000.00
4.44 No. 50
4. M 10 Concrete as base 1x1000x3.0x0.1 300 3744 1123200.00 1x1000x3.0x0.1 300 m3 3744 1123200.00
Reinforcement 16120
- - - -
10 mm in Longitudinal 2x20x13×50x0.62 5896.80
5. Direction 45 per kg 990756.00
2x20x126×3.0x0.39 22016.8
8 mm in Transverse - - - - kg
Direction
Total: 4012050.00 3885081.50
Saving = 3.16%

22 highway research journal, july – december 2012

 Reinforced Cement Concrete Pavement for Village Roads in Alluvial Region: A Sustainable Option

Fig. 1 Cross Section of RCC Pavement over BOE/GSB/WBM Base for Fig. 2 Cross Section of RCC Pavement over BOE/GSB/WBM Base for
Dead End Road (Joint Spacing: 50) through village Road (Joint Spacing: 50m)

Fig. 3 Cross Section of RCC Pavement over LC Base for Dead End Fig. 4 Cross Section of RCC Pavement over LC Base for Through Village
Village Road (Joint Spacing: 50m) Road (Joint Spacing: 50 m).

(a) Lucknow-Nagram to Sarthua Link Road (c) Sakutiya-Byodhan-Khurd Road

Fig. 5 RCC Pavements with Reinforcement at Top and Bottom

5. DESIGN CURVES FOR RCC PAVEMENT

For the design of RCC pavement for village roads, a

program is developed in MS-Excel. The values of the total
flexural stresses in the rigid pavement with varying joint
spacing and sub-grade modulus are obtained. Design curves
for determining thickness of rigid pavements are shown in
Figs. 6 to17 for different modulus of sub-grade reactions in
zone-I and zone-II, to facilitate the designers in designing
Pratapgarh-Jathwara-Lalgopalganj Road
RCC pavement for village roads.

highway research journal, july – december 2012 23

 Srivastava, Duggal & Shukla on

Table7 Per km. Cost comparison of PCP and Reinforced Concrete Pavement (Pavement width 3.0m Wheel Load
30kN). (Using M30 Concrete in PCP and M20 in RCC Pavement as PQC and Base as BOE/GSB/WBM)
S. Plain Concrete Pavement Composite Cement Concrete Pavement
No. Rate Rate
Item Measurement Qty. Amount Measurement Qty. Amount
(Rs.) (Rs.)
M 30 Grade 4913 per
1. 1x1000x3.0x0.15 450 m 3
2210850.00
Cement Concrete m3
M 20 Cement 4555 per
2. 1x1000x3.0x0.125 375 m3 1708125.00
Concrete m3
1000 3000 per 1000 3000 per
3. Number of Joints 226 No. 678000.00 21 No. 63000.00
4.44 Joint 50 Joint
Reinforcement
10 mm in
Longitudinal - - - -
2x20x13×50x0.62 16120 45 per
4. Direction 990756.00
2x20x126×3.0x0.39 5896.80 kg
8 mm in - - - -
22016.8 kg
Transverse
Direction
Total: 2888850.00 2761881.00
Saving = 4.40 per cent
Table 8 Per km. Cost Comparison of PCP and Reinforced Concrete Pavement (Pavement width 3.75 m Wheel Load 51kN).
(Using M30 Concrete in PCP and M20 in RCC pavement as PQC and Base as LC)
S. Plain Concrete Pavement Composite Cement Concrete Pavement
No. Item Measurement Qty. Rate (Rs.) Amount Measurement Qty. Rate (Rs.) Amount
M 30 Grade
1. 1x1000x3.75x0.2 450 m 3
4913 per m 3684750.00
3
Cement Concrete
M 20 Cement
2. 1x1000x3.75x0.175 656.25 m3 4555 per m3 2989218.75
Concrete
1000 4000 per 1000 4000 per
3. Number of Joints 226 No. 904000.00 21 No. 84000.00
4.44 Joint 50 Joint
M 10 Concrete as
4. 1x1000x3.75x0.1 375 3744 1404000.00 1x1000x3.75x0.1 375 m3 3744 1404000.00
base
Reinforcement
10 mm in 26040
Longitudinal - - - - 2x20x13×50x0.62
5. Direction 7371.80 45 per kg 1503495.00
2x20x126×3.0x0.39
8 mm in Transverse 33411.0 kg
Direction - - - -
Total: 5992750.00 5980714.00
Saving = 0.20 per cent
Table 9 Per km. Cost Comparison of PCP and reinforced Concrete Pavement (Pavement width 3.75m Wheel Load
51kN). (Using M30 Concrete in PCP and M20 in RCC Pavement as PQC and Base as BOE/GSB/WBM)
Plain Concrete Pavement Composite Cement Concrete Pavement
S. No. Item Rate
Measurement Qty. Amount Measurement Qty. Rate (Rs.) Amount
(Rs.)
M 30 Grade 4913 per
1. 1x1000x3.75x0.2 750 m3 3684750.00
Cement Concrete m3
M 20 Cement 4555 per
2. 1x1000x3.75x0.175 656.25 m3 2989218.75
Concrete m3
1000 4000 per 1000 3000 per
3. Number of Joints 226 No. 904000.00 21 No. 84000.00
4.44 Joint 50 Joint

Reinforcement
10 mm in
Longitudinal 2x20x21×50x0.62
4. Direction - - - - 26040 45 per kg 1503495.00
2x20x126×3.75x0.39
8 mm in Transverse 7371.00
Direction - - - - 33411.0 kg
Total: 4588750.00 4576714.00
Saving = 0.26 per cent

24 highway research journal, july – december 2012

 Reinforced Cement Concrete Pavement for Village Roads in Alluvial Region: A Sustainable Option

Fig. 6 Stresses in RCC Rigid Pavement for Rural Dead End Roads in Fig. 7 Stresses in RCC Rigid Pavement for Rural Dead End Roads in
Alluvial Region (Zone I). Alluvial Region (Zone II).

Fig. 8 Stresses in RCC Rigid Pavement for Rural Dead End Roads in Fig. 9 Stresses in RCC Rigid Pavement (for Rural Dead End Roads in
Alluvial Region (Zone I). Alluvial Region (Zone II).

Fig. 10 Stresses in RCC Rigid Pavement for Rural Dead End Roads in Fig. 11 Stresses in RCC Rigid Pavement for Rural Dead End Roads in
Alluvial Region (Zone I). Alluvial Region (Zone II).

Fig. 12 Stresses in RCC Rigid Pavement for Rural Through Roads in Fig. 13 Stresses in RCC Rigid Pavement for Rural Through Roads in
Alluvial Region (Zone I). Alluvial Region (Zone II).

Fig. 14 Stresses in RCC Rigid Pavement for Rural Through Roads in Fig. 15 Stresses in RCC Rigid Pavement for Rural Through Roads in
Alluvial Region (Zone I). Alluvial Region (Zone II).

highway research journal, july – december 2012 25

 Srivastava, Duggal & Shukla on Reinforced Cement Concrete Pavement for Village Roads in Alluvial
Region: A Sustainable Option
Fig. 16 Stresses in RCC Rigid Pavement for Rural Through Roads in
Alluvial Region (Zone I).
6 CONCLUDING REMARKS
Reinforced cement concrete pavement with reinforcement
placed at top and bottom are designed for village roads. For
low volume traffic roads, M 20 grade concrete is found to
be more appropriate because of its easy implementation
in the field for village roads. Proposed RCC pavement is
suitable for sub-grade having very low modulus of reaction.
RCC pavement for dead end roads (CBR = 5, k = 4.2 kg/
cm2/cm, modified k = 16.6 kg/cm2/cm, joint spacing = 50
m) is economical by 4.0 per cent in comparison to PCP
pavement as specified by IRC. The temperature and moisture
variations may also cause tension at top and bottom of
slab. Reinforcement at middle specified in CRCP is not so
effective since cracks appear first at top and bottom face and
then move towards inner region. Flexural use of steel is not
possible if it is placed at neutral axis. By providing steel
at both faces of pavement, the spacing of contraction joint
can be increased that further improves the riding comfort.
The advantage of long length of panel also increases the
frictional stresses which are compressive in nature and
ultimately reduce the critical tensile stress. The proposed
RCC pavements are constructed and their performance in
the field have been observed and found to be satisfactory.
REFERENCES:
1. Visser, T., and Hall, S. (1999), “Flexible Portland Cement Concrete
Pavement for Village Roads”, Transportation Research Record
1652, Transportation Research Board, Washington D.C., 121-127.
26
Fig. 17 Stresses in RCC Rigid Pavement for Rural Through Roads in
Alluvial Region (Zone II).
2. Visser, T., and Hall, S. (2003), “Innovative and Cost Effective
Solutions for Roads in Rural Areas and Difficult Terrain”,
Transportation Research Record 1652, J. Transportation Research
Board, 1819A/2003, 169-173.
3. Pandey, B.B., (2006), “ Low Cost Concrete Roads for Villages”,
Grameen sampark, National Rural Road Development Agency,
Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India, Vol. II, No.
1 &2, June 2006,14-15.
4. Pandey, B.B., (2007), “Durable Pavements for Villages with Sand-
Cement”, Grameen Sampark, National Rural Road Development
Agency, Ministry of Rural development, Government of India,
May 2007, 23-24.
5. Sahu, U.C., Reddy, K.S., and Pandey, B.B. (2006), “Structural
Evaluation of Concrete Filled Cell Pavement”, Int. J. Pavement
Engineering & Asphalt Technology, U.K., 7 (1), 27-27.
6. Sinha,V.K., Kumar.S., and Jain.R. K. (2007), “ WhiteTopping-A
Cot-Effctive rehabilitation Alternative for Preserving Bituminous
Pavements on Long-Term Basis” Indian Roads Congress. Vol.
68-3
7. IRC:SP:62-2004 (2004), “Guidelines for the Design and
Construction of Cement Concrete Pavements for Rural Roads”,
The Indian Roads Congress, 2004.
8. IRC: 101-1988 (1988), “Guidelines for Design of Continuously
Reinforced Concrete Pavement with Elastic Joints”, The Indian
Roads Congress, 1988.
9. IRC: 58-2002 (2002), “Guidelines for Design of Plain Jointed
Rigid Pavements for Highways”, The Indian Road Congress
2002.
highway research journal, july – december 2012
 Modeling Occurrence and Severity of Road Crashes on Selected
Multi Lane Carriageways in India
Padma S*, Velmurugan.S**, Madhu Errampalli**, Sitaramanjaneyulu.J***, Subhamay Gangopadhyay,****
Revathi.A*****

ABSTRACT
The causative factors for road crashes are well known and they can be classified into three groups namely vehicle, road and driver. However,
the apportionment of these factors which leads to road crashes is a very difficult task. This requires exhaustive representation of road
crash severity considering each and every causative parameter. Whatever savings that are gained from the high speed corridors in terms of
enhanced speed and increased capacity are getting lost due to the road crashes and it is estimated that about 3 per cent of GDP in India is
lost due to road crashes. Considering these issues, it is proposed to study the trend of these road crashes and quantify loss to economy in
the present study. In order to do that the road crash data was collected from National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) for the selected
high speed corridors for the last two years. The road crashes are modeled to predict road crash occurrence as well as severity using Binary
Logit Model and Multinomial Logit Model. For this, the influencing parameters such as road characteristics, geometry, weather conditions
etc. are considered.

1 BACKGROUND According to WHO Global Status report on Road Safety,

India has one of the largest road networks in the world
hovering around 3.5 million km at present. For the purpose
of management and administration, roads in India are
classified into five categories namely, National Highways
(NH), State Highways (SH), Major District Roads (MDR),
Other District Roads (ODR) and Village Roads (VR).
The National Highways (NH’s) are intended to facilitate
medium and long distance inter-city passenger and freight
traffic across the country. NH’s is main arterial roads which
constitutes less than 2per cent of total road network. The
existing road infrastructure and available transport services
in the country are highly inadequate for achieving faster
movement of passengers and goods in comparison with
other developed countries. In order to overcome these
shortcomings in the transport sector, the Government of
India has initiated massive construction programmers of
highways linking major cities/activity centres. This has led
to the gradual growth in the quantum of NH network over
the last decade. The proposed NH programs promise a better
ridership quality in terms of speed and capacity; however,
the road safety issue has not been addressed adequately.
Statistics indicate that over 1.2 million people die of road
crashes each year around the world and more than 90per
cent of them are in low and middle-income countries,
which have only 48per cent of world’s registered vehicles.
about 130,000 people died in road crashes in India in
2010, which was highest for any country in the world and
thereby accounting for approximately 14 deaths every
hour. The augmentation of roads in India began with the
implementation of Golden Quadrilateral connecting Delhi,
Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai coupled with North - South
and East - West corridors. This comprised of expanding the
existing highways from the existing two lanes to four lane
divided carriageways or alternatively from four lanes to
six lane divided carriageways under the National Highway
Development Program (NHDP) covered under Phases I - VII.
As the country is embracing prominent position in global
economy, which in turn has contributed to the increase in the
number of vehicles plying on roads, the need to address the
issue of road crashes has become imperative. The insurgence
of vehicular traffic and the need to drive faster has resulted
in widening of several sections of the corridors. However,
during this process of road capacity augmentation carried
out in the first three phases of the above mentioned NHDP
program, road safety has been neglected to a large extent
which has resulted in the increase of number of fatalities on
Indian roads. Though the causative factors for road crashes
are well known and they can be classified into three groups
namely, vehicle, road and driver, the apportionment of these
factors which leads to crashes is indeed a very difficult task.
This requires exhaustive evaluation of crashes representing

The views expressed in the Paper are personal views of the author. For any quary, the author may be contacted at e-mail

}
* Scientist and corresponding author, Traffic and Transport Planning Area
** Scientist, Traffic and Transport Planning Area Central Road Research Institute (C.R.R.I.),
*** Scientist, Pavement Evaluation Division New Delhi-110020, INDIA
**** Director
***** Post Graduate Student, College of Engineering, Anna University, Guindy, Chennai-600025, INDIA

highway research journal, july – december 2012 27

 Padma, Velmurugan, Madhu, Sitaramanjaneyulu, Gangopadhyay & Revathi on

each and every causative parameter. In this study, an attempt
has been made to understand the role of causative factors
and therefore an investigation into the relationship between
the causative factors and the occurrence as well as severity
of road crashes has been investigated.
combinations of varying causative factors were considered.
To understand the nature of road crash within the dataset,
critical analysis of the causative variables was carried out.

2 STUDY CORRIDORS AND DATABASE

The database consisted of secondary data collected from

various National Highways shown in Table 1.

Table 1 List of National Highways considered for Road

Crash Analysis

NH-1 NH -5
NH-7 NH-45 Fig. 2 Variation of Occurrence and Severity of Road Crashes with respect
NH-8 NH-2 to the Weather Conditions

NH-68 NH-76
NH-79 NH-46
NH-28 NH-37
NH-36 NH-54
NH-6 NH-3
NH-47 NH-22
NH-79A NH-45C
NH-5A NH-13
Fig. 3 Variation of Occurrence and Severity of Road Crashes with respect
NH-17 to the Intersection Type

The parameters required for the model development were

appropriately chosen from the collected data. They are
mainly date and time of road crash, vehicles involved in
the road crash, nature of road crash, severity of road crash,
number of fatalities, grievous and minor injuries, weather
condition, road feature, road condition, intersection type.
A total of 3019 reported road crashes on the above road
stretches were analyzed in terms of occurrence and road
crash severity. Each causative factor was segregated into
a number of sub-sections which were then appropriately Fig. 4 Variation of Occurrence and Severity of Road Crashes with respect
to the Road Feature
coded to avoid difficulty at the time of analysis. In all 84000

Fig. 5 Variation of Occurrence and Severity of Road Crashes with respect

Fig. 1 Temporal Variation of Occurrence and Severity of Road Crashes to the Cause of Road Crash

28 highway research journal, july – december 2012

 Modeling Occurrence and Severity of Road Crashes on Selected Multi Lane Carriageways in India
Fig. 6 Variation of Occurrence and Severity of Road Crashes with respect
to the Nature of Road Crash
Fig. 7 Nature of Road Crash at various Intersection types
Fig. 8 Nature of Road crash with respect to the Weather Condition
Fig. 1 illustrates that during any time period of the day, the
per centage of fatal and minor injuries are almost equal
to each other. It has been found that grievous injury road
crashes are maximum during any time period of the day.
Fig. 2 indicates that the minor road crashes are dominant
during windy weather conditions however the per centage
of fatal road crashes is almost the same irrespective of the
weather conditions. Fig. 3 indicates that the maximum
numbers of road crashes occur at the midblock. Fig. 4
shows that the proportion of grievous injury occurring on
single lane, two-lane and four lane divided carriageways
highway research journal, july – december 2012
are almost same. Fig. 5 indicates that the major causative
factor for the occurrence of majority of road crashes is due
to over speeding; however, the per centage of the minor road
crashes is the same irrespective of the cause of road crash.
Fig. 6 show that overturning and rear end collisions are the
major causes of road crashes in the dataset. Fig. 7 indicates
that at the midblock rear end collisions were predominant
and during cloudy weather conditions overturning nature of
road crashes were predominant. After carrying out the above
analysis, the process of identifying the appropriate variable
has became easier as the interaction amongst the variables
was properly understood. The probability of occurrence of
road crashes has been modeled using Binary Logit model
whereas the probability of a road crash severity was modeled
using Multinomial Logit Model.
2.1 Modeling Road Crash Occurrence
The occurrence of a road crash is a probabilistic phenomenon;
however statistical evidence shows that the occurrence of a
road crash can be defined as a combination of several casual
factors. In this study, an attempt has been made to model
the probability of road crash occurrence from the collected
road crash data. The data contained fields indicating the
combination of various causative factors responsible for
road crash occurrence. The study assumes that the remaining
combination of causative factors fail to cause a road crash or
do not result in a road crash. The analogy adopted in this study
is based on the premise that the probability of occurrence of
a road crash is based on the causative factors available in the
dataset and the same is defined as 1 whereas the probability
of non-occurrence of a road crash due to absence of various
causative factors is defined as 0. Various causative factors
for occurrence of a road crash considered in the study are
time, causes, road feature, road condition, and intersection
type and weather condition. Considering these factors, the
dataset containing both non-occurrence and occurrence of
road crashes was generated from the collected road crash
data. From all the combinations of the causative factors, the
database of about 84,000 records was generated. Out of the
84,000 records, 70per cent was used for the calibration of
road crash occurrence prediction model and the remaining
30per cent was used for validation of the model. The model
formulation is as shown in equn. 1.
equn. 1
Where,
πi – is the probability the ith case experiences the event of
interest or the probability the ith case experiences an road
crash
Zi – is the value of the unobserved continuous variable for
29
 Padma, Velmurugan, Madhu, Sitaramanjaneyulu, Gangopadhyay & Revathi on
the ith case or the propensity towards the ith case experience
and road crash.
Zi = b0+b1 xi1+b2 x i2+...+ bpxip equn. 2
Where,
xij – is the jth predictor for ith case
bj - is the jth coefficient
p – is the number of predictors
For the development of the road crash occurrence prediction
model, the independent variables considered include time,
causes, road features, road condition, intersection type and
weather condition. Since the dependent variable is either
(i.e. non-occurrence of road crash) or 1 (i.e. occurrence of
road crash) and all the independent variables are divided
into categories by appropriately assigning codes and since
dependent variable is having two choices and independent
variables are not continuous variables, a binary Logit model
has been developed by establishing relationship between
these variables. The calibration of the road crash occurrence
prediction model is carried for the 70 per cent of sample
using the software called the SPSS (Statistical Packages for
Social Studies). The R2 value of the developed model was
found to be 0.537 (Nagelkerke), 0.518 (Macfadden) and
0.074 (Cox and Snell) indicate that the developed model
can be used to predict with reasonable degree of accuracy.
The prediction accuracy of the calibrated sample is given
in Table 2. From this table, it can be observed that overall
prediction accuracy is about 98.9 per cent which implies that
the model is able to predict the road crash occurrence with
a reasonable degree of accuracy. The parameter coefficients
obtained from the calibration process were then used for
validating the model and during the validation process; the
remaining 30 per cent data has been used. The prediction
accuracy table of the validated sample is shown in Table 3. A
close look at the above table shows that the validated sample
has an overall prediction accuracy of 98.6 per cent.
Table 2 Prediction Accuracy of Binary Logit Model
during Calibration
Predicted Samples
Probability 0 1 Per centage
Accuracy
0 57906 93 99.80 per
Observed cent
Samples 1 568 268 32.10 per
cent
Overall Per 99.40 per 0.60 per 98.90 per
centage cent cent cent
30
Table 3 Prediction Accuracy of Binary Logit Model
during Validation
Predicted Samples
Per centage
Probability 0 1
Accuracy
0 24686 57 99.80 per cent
Observed
Samples 1 295 127 30.1 per cent
Overall Per 98.8 per 69.0 per
98.60 per cent
centage cent cent
2.2 Modeling Road Crash Severity
The road crash severity is classified into three categories
namely; fatal, grievous and minor as discussed earlier. The
dependent variable considered in the model is road crash
severity which is discrete in nature. The modeling involves
the prediction of road crash severity between the dependent
variable namely the severity of road crash (i.e. based on
fatal, grievous, minor) and independent factors, such as
nature of road crash, causes of road crash, road feature, road
condition, intersection type, weather condition. All these
independent variables are also discrete in nature as discussed
in the previous section. The easiest and most widely used
discrete choice model for Modeling road crash severity is
Multinomial Logit Model (MNL). Its popularity is due to
the fact that the formula for the choice probabilities takes a
closed form and is readily interpretable. The basic limitation
of the MNL model is that it has the property termed as the
independence from irrelevant alternatives (IIA). The IIA
property implies that the relative probability of choosing
between any two alternatives is independent of all other
alternatives. Correlation among unobserved factors across
alternatives makes the MNL model ineffective under these
conditions. In addition, the MNL model does not account
for the ordinal nature of discrete data and thus the ordering
information for road crash severity (ranked for e.g. fatal,
grievous, minor) is lost.
The MNL model for road crash severity prediction has
been modeled using SPSS software as was done in road
crash occurrence prediction model. As done in the case
of road crash occurrence prediction model, the road crash
severity prediction model was also calibrated by considering
70 per cent of the dataset and the remaining 30 per cent
of the data was used for validation purpose. The statistical
output generated from the MNL model by using SPSS is
presented in Tables 4 and 5.
highway research journal, july – december 2012
 Modeling Occurrence and Severity of Road Crashes on Selected Multi Lane Carriageways in India

Table 4 Multinomial Logit Model Output for Road crash The probabilities were then used to estimate the accuracy of
Severity Prediction the model in terms of road crash severity for the validation
Model Fitting sample. The relationship of individual variables with the
Likelihood Ratio Tests dependent variable is highlighted in Table 6.
Model Criteria
Table 6 Likelihood Ratio Tests for Multinomial
-2 Log Likelihood Chi-Square df Sig.
Logit Model
Intercept
1.709E3 Model Fitting
Only Likelihood Ratio Tests
Criteria
Final 1.552E3 157.146 52 .000 -2 Log
Effect
Likelihood Chi-
df Sig.
of Reduced Square
Table 5 Multinomial Logit Model Output of Goodness of fit for
Model
Road Crash Severity Prediction Intercept 1.552E3 .000 0 .
Chi-Square df Sig time 1.567E3 15.668 8 .047
Nature of acc 1.573E3 21.397 8 .006
Pearson 985.003 864 .003
causes 1.597E3 45.706 6 .000
Deviance 985.407 864 .002 Road feature 1.565E3 13.933 6 .030
From Table 4, it can be inferred that the presence of a Road condition 1.573E3 21.232 6 .002
relationship between the dependent and independent variables intersection 1.567E3 15.232 12 .229
weather 1.572E3 20.249 6 .003
exists. The significance value for the model is 0.000 which is
less than 0.05 indicating that the null hypothesis which states The statistical significance of the relationship between the
that there is no difference between the model having the set of independent variables and the dependent variable is based
independent variables and the model having no independent on the statistical significance of the chi-square statistic in the
variable is rejected. The existence of a relationship between likelihood ratio test. The probability of chi square statistic for
the independent variable and the dependent variable is hence the independent variable time was 0.047 which is lesser than
established. From Table 5, it can be concluded that goodness the level of significance of 0.05. Hence the null hypothesis
of fit of the model is reasonable as the significance values that all the ‘b’ coefficients associated with the independent
of Pearson and Deviance are lesser than 0.05 indicating that variable ‘time’ is equal to zero is rejected. The existence of a
the proposed model fits the present data set with reasonable relationship between the independent variable ‘time’ and the
degree of accuracy. The reference category for calibration was dependent variable ‘severity of road crash’ was established.
chosen to be ‘minor injuries’ as they form the largest category Similarly the probability of chi square statistic for the
amongst Road Crash severity. The “estimated parameters” independent variables “nature of road crash”, “causes”,
are the log odds used to predict the dependent variable. The “road feature”, “road condition”, and “weather” are lesser
parameter estimates associated with the explanatory variables than the level of significance of 0.05. From this it can be
are the estimators of the change in Logit model for unit change inferred that the null hypothesis that all the ‘b’ coefficients
in the dependent variable. The log of odds of various groups associated with these independent variables are equal to zero
was calculated as follows: gets rejected. The existence of a relationship between these
Zik =bko + bk1xi1 + bk2xi2 + ...+ bkpxip equn. 3 independent variables and the dependent variable of road
crash severity was thus proven. However, the probability of
Where, chi square statistic for the independent variable “intersection
xij - is the jth predictor for ith case type” is more than the level of significance. Hence the
model indicates that either this independent variable should
bkj - is the jth coefficient for the kth unobserved variable
be rejected or else should be refined to be included in the
p - is the number of predictors model. The significance of the independent variables can
also be tested by comparing the difference in -2LL of the
e
Zik overall model with the reduced model. This difference
πik =
e
Zi1 +eZi2 +eZik equn. 4 is assessed by the chi square value, that is, for significant
Where, variables the larger the chi square values, the greater is the
loss to the model fit if that parameter is dropped. Based on
πik – is the probability the ith case falls in category k
the developed model, prediction table (as shown in Table
Zik – is the value of kth unobserved continuous variable for 7) has been formulated based on the parameter estimates
the ith case derived from the calibration sample.

highway research journal, july – december 2012 31

 Padma, Velmurugan, Madhu, Sitaramanjaneyulu, Gangopadhyay & Revathi on Modeling Occurrence and Severity of Road
Crashes on Selected Multi Lane Carriageways in India

Table 7 Level of Road Crash Severity Prediction during their thanks to all the team members of the study in C.R.R.I
Calibration including Shri Sher Singh, Shri, Rajan Verma and Shri S.K.
Predicted Samples Ummat.
Severity Fatal Grievous Minor Per centage REFERENCES
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Fatal 10 23 298 3.0 per cent Estimating Crash Counts According to Their Collision Type, TRB
Observed
Grievous 1 94 554 14.5 per cent 89TH Annual Meeting, paper 10-2572, 2010.
Samples
Minor 6 63 1064 93.9 per cent 2. Holdridge.M.J, Shankar.N.V & Ulfarsson.F.G,(2005) The Crash
Overall Per 0.8 per 8.5 per 90.7 per 53.3 per cent Severity Impacts of Fixed Roadside Objects, Journal of Safety
centage cent cent cent Research Vol 36, 139-147.
3. Jonsson.T, Ivan.N.J & Zhang.C (2007), Crash Prediction Models
From Table 7, it can be noted that an overall prediction for Intersections on Rural Multilane Highway, Transportation
accuracy of 55.3per cent with 3per cent prediction accuracy Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board
for fatal road crashes, 14.5per cent prediction accuracy for Vol 2019, 91-98.
grievous road crashes and 93.9per cent prediction accuracy 4. Khorashadi.A, Niemeier.D, Shankar.V & Mannering.F,(2005)
for minor injuries. The remaining 30per cent of the dataset was Differences in Rural and Urban Driver-Injury Severities Involving
Large Trucks : An explanatory Analysis. Journal of Accident
used for validation. The validation was done with coefficients Analysis and Prevention Vol 37, 910-921.
obtained by the parameter estimated. The probabilities were 5. Lee.J and Mannering.F (2002) Impact of Roadside Features on
then used to estimate the accuracy of the model in terms of the Frequency and Severity of Run-Off-Roadway Accidents: An
road crash severity for the validation sample. The prediction Empirical Analysis, Journal of Accident Analysis and Prevention
Vol 34, 149-161.
table for the validated sample is presented in Table 8.
6. Leveson.N (2004) A New Accident Model for Engineering Safer
Table 8 Level of Road Crash Severity Prediction Systems, Safety Science, Vol.42, No.4, 237-270.
during Validation
7. Malyshkina.V.N, Mannering. L.F, (2008), Markov Switching
Predicted Samples Multinomial Logit Model: An Application to Accident Injury
Severity Fatal Grievous Minor Per centage Severities, Accident Analysis and Prevention.
Accuracy 8. Padma, S., Velmurugan, S., Errampalli, M. and Shukla, A. 2010.
Fatal 7 56 56 5.9 per cent Modeling Accident Severity Using Multinomial Logit Model.
Observed Proc. International Conference on Infrastructure, Sustainable
Grievous 3 111 179 37.9 per cent
Samples Transportation and Urban Planning, CISTUP@CiSTUP 2010,
Minor 10 214 268 54.5 per cent IISc, Bangalore.
Overall Per 0.8 per 8.5 per 90.7per 42.7 per cent 9. Padma, S., Errampalli, M., Shah, P. M., Shukla, A. and
centage cent cent cent Gangopadhyay, S., 2011. A Study of Road Crashes Along the High
From Table 8, it can be seen that an overall prediction Speed Corridors of India. Journal of Road Transport, Vol. 3, IRT,
Chennai, 1-14.
accuracy of 42.7 per cent with 5.9 per cent prediction
10. Park.J, On.C, (2009) Relating Freeway Traffic Accidents to
accuracy for fatal, 37.9 per cent prediction accuracy for
Inductive Loop Detector Data Using Logistic Regression, 4th
grievous and 54.5 per cent prediction accuracy for minor IRTAD Conference, Seoul, Korea. 223-231.
injuries. Though the overall prediction accuracy is about 11. Pai.W.C, Saleh.W, (2008), Modeling Motorcyclist Injury Severity
43 per cent, the fatal road crash prediction rate is very less Resulting from Sideswipe Collisions at T Junctions in United
which is about 6per cent. From all these calibration and Kingdom: New insights into effect of Maneuvers, International
validation results, it can be concluded that the developed Journal Of Crash Worthiness, Vol13, No 1, 89-98.
model would be able to predict the minor road crashes with 12. Shankar.V, Mannering.F and Barfield.W (1995) Effect of Roadway
quite reasonable accuracy, but the fatal road crash prediction Geometrics and Environmental Factors on Rural Freeway Accident
Frequencies. Journal of Accident Analysis and Prevention Vol27-
rate is quite poor. It is recommended from the results of the No.3, 371-389.
study that the improvement in the model can be done by
13. Shaw-Pin Miaou (1994) The Relationship between Truck
considering other soft computing tools like fuzzy logic for Accidents and Geometric Design of Road Sections. Journal of
modeling the road crash severity. Accident Analysis and Prevention Vol 26, 471-489.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 14. Wang.X, Kockelman.M.K, Occupant Injury Severity using a
Heteroscedastic Ordered Logit Model: Distinguishing the Effects
The authors are grateful to the Director, Central Road of Vehicle Weight and Type, Transport Research Record: Journal
Research Institute (C.R.R.I.), New Delhi-110020 for kindly of Transport Research Board, Vol 1908, 2005, 195-204.
giving permission to publish the Paper from the studies 15. Zang.H, PhD Dissertation, Identifying and Quantifying Factors
carried out by this institute. They also would like to extend Affecting Traffic Crash Severity in Louisiana, May 2010.

32 highway research journal, july – december 2012

 APPLICATION OF FUZZY LOGIC IN TRAFFIC SIGNAL CO-ORDINATION
Ashalatha R* & Manjusha M**

ABSTRACT
Design of traffic signal coordination in the conventional method makes use of only traffic related parameters. A design
procedure which can incorporate user perception also in addition to traffic related parameters can lead to a better design. In
this study an attempt was made to design two phase coordinated traffic signal incorporating quantitative as well as qualitative
parameters using fuzzy logic approach. Fuzzy rules were formulated by relating the important quantitative parameters
like average stream speed, volume to capacity ratio and average control delay and quality of progression was taken as the
qualitative parameter. The design procedure was implemented on a real corridor consisting of three intersections. Measures
of effectiveness such as band width, efficiency, attainability, average control delay per vehicle per cycle length were used to
determine the efficacy of the design procedure. It gave an efficiency of 64 per cent and an attainability of 92 per cent while
improving the average stream speed from existing 14 kph to 32 kph. The average control delay per vehicle per cycle length
on major stream was reduced by 69 per cent and on the minor stream was reduced by 70 per cent.

1 INTRODUCTION same cycle length or multiples of the minimum cycle length

Coordinated signalized intersections are the most sought after
type of intersection control especially along urban corridors.
But if the signal coordination is not properly designed taking
into consideration, maximum flow and minimum delay, it
will be the main cause of delay along the major corridor.
These delays will lead to huge economic loss to the society
in terms of time lost in waiting and wastage of fuel due to idle
running of engines during the red phase. Properly designed
traffic signal coordination also reduces number of stops and
accident potential at intersections.
The basic concept of signal coordination is that when the first
vehicle in a platoon of vehicles approaches an intersection;
the signal should turn green before braking would have to
occur for a red light. This relieves congestion to a great
extent. Maintenance of a preferred speed and ability to
send vehicles through adjacent intersections in moving
platoons are the other benefits of coordination. Good signal
coordination should also be able to take into account dynamic
conditions, such as, corridor speed, traffic signal spacing,
pedestrian volume, congestion, and traffic volumes on major
and minor streets, traffic signal cycle lengths and additional
phasing. Common practice is to coordinate signals less than
eight hundred metres apart on major streets and highways.
Signal coordination plans require that all signals have the
(Mc Shane et al., 1998).
Design of signal coordination in the conventional manner
makes use of only traffic related parameters without taking
into account the user perception. If the user perception can
also be accounted in the design procedure, it will lead to a
better design (Niittymäki and Pursula, 1998). Fuzzy control
technology is capable of incorporating qualitative parameters
like user perception along with the quantitative parameters
like traffic parameters.
2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Quite a few studies are reported on traffic signal coordination.
Some of these have devised their own techniques while some
have explored the use of fuzzy logic to achieve an efficient
signal co-ordination. Certain others have tried various policy
options in their efforts to get best signal coordination. Some
important works on traffic signal coordination are reviewed
here for the benefit of the readers.
Pappis and Mamdani (1977) highlighted the potential of
fuzzy logic in traffic signal control. The effect of platoon
progression on capacity was studied by Todd (1988). The
study found that unfavourable intersection spacing, turning
vehicles; platoon dispersion lowered the system capacity and
impaired the successful progression of traffic. Chui (1992)

The views expressed in the Paper are personal views of the author. For any quary, the author may be contacted at e-mail

* Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering Trivandrum, Thiruvananthapuram 695016, INDIA.
Email:ashu.cet@gmail.com
** Ex-Post Graduate Student, Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering Trivandrum, Thiruvananthapuram 695016, INDIA

highway research journal, july – december 2012 33

 Ashalatha & Manjusha on

in his study has presented a distributed approach to traffic and per centage of stopped vehicles, etc. Solving such an
signal control, where the signal timing parameters at a given optimization problem mathematically will be difficult. Fuzzy
intersection were adjusted as functions of the local traffic control has proved to be successful in problem areas where
condition and of the signal timing parameters at adjacent exact mathematical modeling is difficult or impossible. Thus,
intersections. A set of 40 fuzzy decision rules were used traffic signal control is a suitable task for fuzzy control.
for adjusting the signal timing parameters. Chand and Chui
(1993) presented an approach to self-organizing traffic signal 3 DESCRIPTION OF STUDY STRETCH
control based on a fully distributed system of cooperative In the present study, a corridor along National Highway-
local controllers. This fully distributed architecture provided 47 passing through Thiruvananthapuram city (in the
for a fault-tolerant, responsive traffic control system, while southern part of India), with three isolated intersections was
the underlying fuzzy rule-based algorithm provides for a selected. Fig. 1 gives the schematic sketch of the selected
flexible and easily extensible control law. Niittymäki and corridor along with the traffic volume. The major road is
Pursula (1998) also studied the application of fuzzy control in 4-lane divided carriageway and minor legs are single lane
traffic signal control. They conducted a theoretical analysis of approaches. The major stream through traffic (one direction)
fuzzy traffic signal control and fuzzy rules were generalized during the morning peak was observed in the range of 720
using linguistic variables. The study validated fuzzy control
principles and membership functions were also calibrated
and a fuzzy adaptive signal controller was developed. Their
study revealed that the incorporation of fuzzy parameters to
traffic control problems enlarges usefulness of the approach
and makes it possible to implement the results in an adaptive
traffic control. Niittymäki and Turunen (2003) used the
principles of fuzzy logic in traffic signal control and found
it to be superior in complex transportation problems with
multi objective decisions.

The effect of varying offsets is known to make a significant

impact on signal design. This aspect was studied in detail
by Singh and Morgan (2003). In this study the offsets were
calculated by plotting the time-space diagrams and adjusting
the offsets manually so as to maximize the bandwidth.
Under mixed traffic conditions the composition of vehicles
in traffic stream changes over time and space. Suhas (2005)
conducted studies on time and space allocation to maximize
heterogeneous traffic flow through signalized intersections.
They found that it is possible to coordinate the working of
adjacent traffic signals, even under mixed traffic conditions
and thus ensuring significant reduction in delay to traffic.
The main drawbacks of the study were that it considered
only the traffic related parameters and was designed for the
static traffic flow conditions. Tian and Urbanik (2007) used
system partition technique for improving signal coordination
at Texas Avenue. As per the study, bandwidth was expressed
in terms of upper interference and lower interference at
intersections where the interferences were contributed by
the upstream and downstream signals, respectively.

Traffic signal control is an optimization problem which

includes several simultaneous maximization and
Fig. 1 Schematic diagram of the selected corridor
minimization criteria like average delays, queue lengths

34 highway research journal, july – december 2012

 Application of Fuzzy Logic in Traffic Signal Co-ordination
vph-900 vph, while the minor stream traffic ( straight and
right turn) was 350 vph, 400 vph and 200 vph at intersections
1, 2 and 3 respectively. The range of traffic composition on
the corridor was observed as buses 6per cent -10per cent,
two wheelers 50 per cent - 55per cent, cars 20per cent - 23
per cent and motorized three wheelers 10 per cent - 15 per
cent. All the intersections at present are controlled by fixed
time signal. It was observed that the signals were switched
off during the peak hours and the entire traffic was controlled
manually. These points to the inefficiency of the signals
installed there in handling peak demand. The existing time-
space diagram is shown in Fig. 2. The bandwidth is about 11
s towards south and 15 s towards north, which is very less.
The average control delay experienced by a through vehicle
along this corridor was found to be in the range of 20 -25
seconds. The average stream speed along this corridor is as
low as 14 kph and the variation in speed of different types of
vehicles is about 10 per cent to 15 per cent.
Fig. 2 Existing time-space diagram
4 DESIGN OF TRAFFIC SIGNAL
COORDINATION USING FUZZY LOGIC
APPROACH
In this study an attempt was made to develop fuzzy rules
to effectively design a two traffic signal coordination
incorporating both quantitative and qualitative parameters.
Quantitative parameters considered were volume to capacity
ratio, average stream speed and delay. The qualitative
parameter considered was quality of progression. Volume
to capacity ratio, average stream speed and quality of
progression were the input parameters and delay was taken
as the output parameter.
4.1 Selection of Membership Function and Fixing of
Range
Fuzzy logic implements human experiences and preferences
via membership functions and fuzzy rules. Fuzzy membership
functions can have different shapes like triangular,
trapezoidal, bell shaped etc, depending on the designer’s
highway research journal, july – december 2012
preferences and/or experience. The triangular membership
function is the most frequently used function and the most
practical one. In this study triangular membership functions
were used for all parameters because of its simplicity.
Linguistic expressions, like, low, medium, high, very high
were used for quantitative input parameters like, average
stream speed and volume to capacity ratio and terms like,
poor, unfavourable, random arrival, favourable, highly
favourable and excellent were used for expressing quality
of progression. Delay which is taken as the output parameter
was expressed in terms of low, medium, high. Ranges of
quantitative parameters (delay and average stream speed) as
well as the qualitative parameter needed for developing fuzzy
rules were determined on the basis of a questionnaire survey
conducted from among the users of the selected corridor. 150
users of the selected corridor were interviewed. Through the
questionnaire survey, users’ response regarding the delay he/
she experiences at present while traveling through the study
stretch, the acceptable delay, acceptable average stream
speed and acceptable quality of progression were obtained.
These responses were to be related to the traffic volume
during his/her period of travel, so that the volume to capacity
value corresponding to his/her time of travel was obtained.
For this hourly traffic volume was collected from 7 am to
6 pm on a typical working day and based on the time of
travel (which is recorded in the questionnaire) the responses
of the user regarding delay experienced and acceptable,
average stream speed and acceptable quality of progression
were linked to the actual traffic volume (vph) and thus the
corresponding volume to capacity ratio. An expert opinion
survey was conducted for fixing the ranges of member ship
function for volume to capacity. As per IRC: SP:41-1994,
intersection capacity should be equal to the capacity of the
approach roads. In the present study the major road approach
is 4 lane divided arterial road. The value of capacity was
taken as 2600 pcu /hr/ direction as per IRC: 106-1990. The
acceptable average speed and average delay obtained from
questionnaire survey are shown in Fig. 3 and 4 respectively.
It shows that majority of the users of the corridor preferred
an average speed in the range of 35 kph to 45 kph and an
average delay of 15 s/ veh / cycle length to 30 s/ veh / cycle
length. Fig. 5, 6 and 7 show the membership functions
selected for the quantitative parameters.
Fig. 3 Average speed preferred by the users
35
 Ashalatha & Manjusha on
Fig. 4 Acceptable delay preferred by the users
Fig. 5 Ranges of membership function chosen for volume to capacity ratio
Fig. 6 Ranges of membership function chosen for average stream speed
Fig. 7 Ranges of membership function chosen for the output delay
The qualitative parameter, quality of progression was taken
as an indication of the proportion of the total traffic (P ) that
can effectively utilize green time and move without delay
through the corridor. The value of this parameter ( P) was also
36
found from the user perspective through the questionnaire
survey. Once this value was determined, another parameter
called platoon ratio, RP (HCM, 2000) can be found for a
known value of green time to cycle length ratio as given in
equn. 1.
equn. 1
where,
RP = platoon ratio
P= proportion of the total approaching vehicles in movement
arriving during the phase
C= cycle length at the downstream signal, s
g= green time for the phase at the downstream signal, s
The classification of ‘ RP’ into six linguistic variables and
their ranges was based on the work reported by (Suhas,
2005). Ranges of membership functions assigned to the
qualitative parameter, quality of progression is shown in
Fig. 8. Fig. 9 gives the variation in the user perception with
respect to as obtained through the questionnaire survey. It
can be inferred from this Fig. that maximum number of the
users (60 per cent)
Fig. 8 Ranges of membership function chosen for quality of progression
Fig. 9 Variation in the user perception with respect to P
preferred that about 60 per cent -85 per cent of the total
approaching traffic should be able to effectively utilize green
and clear the corridor without delay. A rough estimate of g/C is
required initially to estimate the value of RP In the present study
highway research journal, july – december 2012
 Application of Fuzzy Logic in Traffic Signal Co-ordination

a C of 65 s and of g 45 s as obtained for the same corridor in a preferred by majority of the users, the score given to each of
separate study done by the authors (Manjusha and Ashalatha, the levels expressed as linguistic variables (out of 12) was
2008) was used. Using the average value of P preferred by also averaged out. The average values are given in Table 2.
majority of users and a C value of 65 s and g value of 45 s,
Table 1 Preferred order and scores assigned
the preferred platoon ratio RP was found out as per equation
(1). The preferred value of P as revealed by the questionnaire Parameters Score ( out of 12)
Average stream speed 12
survey was later used as one of the input parameters to the
rule base viewer in MATLAB 7.0.1 version. Acceptable delay 11
Quality of progression 8
4.2 Formulation of Fuzzy Rules Using Scoring Volume to capacity ratio 6
Technique
Table 2 Score for the linguistic variable for each
Fuzzy rules, which describe relationships in a linguistic parameter
sense, are written as antecedent consequent pairs of IF-
Factor/ weight Term Score
THEN statements. Once the ranges of quantitative as well Average stream Low 3
as qualitative parameters were determined, fuzzy rules were Medium 6
speed ( 12/12)
formulated using scoring technique. For this a survey of the High 9
users’ of the corridor was required. 150 users’ of the corridor Very High 12
were surveyed. Care was taken to ensure that those who were Delay ( 11 /12) Low 12
Medium 6
surveyed were frequent travellers through the selected corridor High 0
and could understand the functioning of signal coordination Volume to capacity Low 12
when briefed upon. The survey was conducted in two stages; ratio ( 6 /12) Medium 9
the score stage and numeric level indication stage. The factors High 6
Very High 3
considered under score stage were volume to capacity ratio, Quality of progres- Poor 0
average stream speed, quality of progression and delay. In the Unfavorable 2
sion ( 8 / 12)
score stage participants were asked to assign scores to (rate) Random 4
the various factors in the questionnaire. The factor score Favourable 6
Highly favourable 8
(out of 12) represents the degree to which the participants Excellent 12
rate the important quantitative and qualitative parameters
which is needed for designing the signal coordination. In the Based on the priority preferred by majority of the users and
numeric level identification stage, each participant was asked scores obtained for each parameter as well for each linguistic
to indicate an average value for each of the levels (expressed variable, the fuzzy rules were formulated.
as linguistic variables) mentioned under each parameter. A sample rule formulation is given below.
Modeling of fuzzy rule base adopted in the present study is
based on the assumption that the linguistic variable for the If the average stream speed is “high”, volume to capacity
output parameter, delay can be determined from the sum of is “low” and quality of progression is “random”, then the
the products of the attribute scores and the perceived level linguistic variable to be assigned to delay can be worked out
scores of the input parameters. Formulation of fuzzy rules as follows (using the values from Table 1 and Table 2).
using scoring technique is explained here with the help of an
illustration. Score obtained for average stream speed = 12/12
Score obtained for “high” average stream speed = (12/12) *9
In the questionnaire survey each user was asked to prioritize
the parameters of traffic signal coordination. Out of the Score obtained for volume to capacity ratio = 6/12
various combinations of the orders of priorities obtained from Score obtained for “low” volume to capacity = (6/12)*12
the survey, the one which was preferred by the maximum Score obtained for quality of progression = 8/12
number of users was selected. As per the present study the
Score obtained for “random” quality of
combination - average stream speed, acceptable delay, quality
of progression and volume to capacity (in the decreasing progression = (8/12) *4
order of priority) was preferred by majority of the users. The Score obtained for delay = (12/12)* 9 + (6/12)*
scores (out of 12) for the corresponding parameter were also 12 + (8/12)* 4 = 17
assigned by the user. The average value of scores for each This value is greater than 12; hence for this combination
of these parameters was then found out. The average values of input parameters, the linguistic variable for the output
are given in Table 1. For the combination of the parameters parameter delay is “low” (as per Table 3).

highway research journal, july – december 2012 37

 Ashalatha & Manjusha on

Using this scoring technique 96 fuzzy rules were formulated the range of 720 vph to 1080 vph this range was adopted
with various combinations of the parameters. The rules were for comparison. The various measures of effectiveness like
cross checked using neuro fuzzy technique. bandwidth, efficiency and attainability were determined for
Fuzzy logic is a rule based system. The input to the fuzzy this range. Table 4 gives the design parameters as well as
system is a scalar value that is fuzzified. The set of rules the measures of effectiveness obtained for a through traffic
is applied to the fuzzified input. The output of each rule is volume of 720-1080 vph.
fuzzy. These fuzzy outputs need to be converted into a scalar Table 3 Details of traffic signal coordination at different
quantity so that the nature of the action to be performed can flow values
be determined by the system. This process of converting a
fuzzy output into a scalar quantity is called defuzzification. Sl. Flow values Cycle Offset Speed Efficiency Attainability
There are many defuzzification techniques available. Centriod No. (vph) lengths (s) (s) (kph) (per cent) (per cent)
1 <360 70 22 35-40 66 94
defuzzification technique was used in the present study. 2 360 - 720 75 22 35-40 65 94
3 720 - 1080 80 24 30-35 64 92
4.3 Selection of Common Cycle Length 4 1080 - 1440 85 30 30-35 62 91
To determine the common cycle length to be adopted for 5 1440 - 1800 90 34 20-25 60 86
6 1800 -2400 90 40 20-25 60 86
coordination the following procedure was adopted. For
a given value of volume to capacity ratio and quality of Table 4 Design parameters and measures of effectiveness
progression as preferred by the maximum number of users Cycle Offset (s) Average v/c ratio at Bandwidth Efficiency Attainability
length (s) stream Intersection (s) (%) (%)
(60per cent - 85per cent), in the fuzzy logic tool box the speed No.
average stream speed was varied within the logical limits (kph)
I II III
(25 kph-35 kph) till a minimum delay was obtained. An
80 24 30-35 0.34 0.38 0.37 51 64 92
interface was developed between fuzzy logic tool box and
the MATLAB program which calculated the cycle length
Fig. 11 shows the time-space diagram obtained using fuzzy
as per Webster’s delay model (Webster, 1961). The cycle
logic approach for a through traffic volume in the range of
length was determined using the MATLAB program based
720 vph/hr-1080 vph/hr. Field control delay during the peak
on the minimum delay obtained through the fuzzy logic
hour was determined using HCM (2000) procedure. This
rule viewer. Once the cycle length was obtained, the green
is compared with the average control delay obtained for a
time was apportioned among the two phases based on the
through traffic range of 720 vph/hr-1080 vph/hr when signals
ratio of approach flow to saturation flow. Saturation flow
rate was determined using U.K. method. Fig. 10 shows the are coordinated using fuzzy logic approach. A comparison
procedure adopted for designing a two phase traffic signal of the delay values is given in Table 5.
co-ordination using fuzzy logic. Table 5 Comparison of average control delay
Condition un- Average control delay to (s/veh/cycle length)
der which delay Major traffic flow Minor traffic flow
is determined Intersection Intersection
1 2 3 1 2 3
Existing condi-
16 22 20 27 29 26
tion
After design us-
6 6 10 8
ing fuzzy logic

Fig. 10 Procedure adopted for designing traffic signal co-ordination

This process was repeated for various ranges of volume to
capacity from 0.1 to 1 in steps of 0.1 increments. For each
range of flow value, the average control delay per vehicle per
cycle length which provided the same quality of progression
as preferred by the majority of users for a logically accepted
average stream speed was found out. Table 3 gives the
details of the two phase traffic signal coordination designed
for various ranges of traffic flow in the major corridor. Since
Fig.11 Time-space diagram after coordination using fuzzy logic
the observed through traffic during peak hour falls within

38 highway research journal, july – december 2012

 Application of Fuzzy Logic in Traffic Signal Co-ordination
5 VALIDATION
The proposed methodology of traffic signal co-ordination
using fuzzy logic has to be validated to ensure that it performs
satisfactorily in the field. For validation, a particular volume
to capacity ratio was selected and the quality of progression
as preferred by majority of the users’, the average stream
speed was varied from 25 kph to 35 kph. The delay obtained
through the fuzzy logic rule viewer for each value of stream
speed was noted. The offset corresponding to each value
of the stream speed was found out using eqn. 2, assuming
that the signal coordination is effective and that there are no
stranglers.
off =(Lavg/Vavg equn. 2
where,
off = offset, s
Lavg = Average Spacing Between Intersections, M
Vavg = Average stream speed along the section, mps
The value of average delay obtained for each value of stream
speed for a given volume to capacity ratio and preferred
quality of progression was plotted against the correspond-
ing offset. Fig. 12 shows the effects of varying offsets on
average delay per vehicle per cycle length for two different
approach traffic volumes.
Fig. 12 Effect of offset on average control delay
It can be seen that for each approach traffic volume there
exists an optimum value of offset which gives the minimum
delay for a given approach volume. This trend is along
the expected lines and is in agreement with the findings
of (Sunkari et. al., 2004). Thus the methodology of traffic
signal coordination using fuzzy logic is validated.
6 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
To ascertain whether the proposed methodology of traffic
signal coordination is efficient various measures of
highway research journal, july – december 2012
effectiveness like bandwidth, attainability, average stream
speed and average delay per vehicle per cycle length were
determined. Analysis and comparison are made for an
approach traffic volume of 720 vph/hr- 1080 vph/hr for the
reason stated earlier.
The minimum green time available for a platoon of vehicles
to pass through a system of signals without hindrance is
called the bandwidth. For the study stretch the existing
bandwidth is only 11s but when fuzzy logic approach of
signal co-ordination was used it gave a bandwidth of 51 s
for a cycle length of 80 s. Ratio of bandwidth to cycle time
is defined as the efficiency of the signal coordination and
ratio of bandwidth to minimum green time is defined as
attainability. For good signal coordination an efficiency of
40 per cent to 50 per cent is needed (Mc Shane, 1998) and
attainability should be maximum. Traffic signal coordination
using fuzzy logic approach when applied on a real corridor
gave an efficiency of 64 per cent and an attainability of 92
per cent while maintaining a quality of progression of 60per
cent to 85 per cent in the major direction. The average stream
speed improved from the existing 14kph to 32kph while
the average control delay (s/vehicle/ cycle length) reduced
significantly from 19.33 s to 6 s (69 per cent reduction) for
major road and from 27.33 s to 8 s (70 per cent reduction)
for the minor. A nonstop volume of 2295 can be attained
under this signal coordination (assuming headway of moving
platoon as 2 s) which is much better than a non stop volume
of 600 vph obtained under the existing field condition.
It has been observed through this study that fuzzy logic
approach of traffic signal coordination when applied on a set
of signals with fixed separation, maximizes bandwidth and
minimizes delay and satisfies majority users’ demand . All
the measures of effectiveness like bandwidth, attainability,
average stream speed and average delay per vehicle per
cycle length are much better. Hence it can be concluded
that fuzzy logic approach of traffic signal coordination
incorporating both quantitative and qualitative parameters
is a better approach. But in order to achieve the benefits of
traffic signal coordination the vehicles should travel at the
designed speed. To ensure this, desired speed of progression
should be displayed at appropriate locations along the
corridor so that vehicles can attain the required speed as and
when they enter the coordinated section.
Fuzzy logic can also take into consideration dynamic traffic
flow condition. According to the changing traffic flow, the
cycle length can be varied. In order to implement this fuzzy
system in field, fuzzy controller unit together with a system
39
 Ashalatha & Manjusha on Application of Fuzzy Logic in Traffic Signal Co-ordination
of sensors are required. The sensors should be installed at
appropriate locations so that the approaching traffic can be
sensed and based on the software designed the cycle length
and phasing can be displayed. Electronic speed display
units should be provided indicating the speed at which
vehicles should traverse the section to utilize the benefits of
coordination.
Thus the present study gives a new approach towards signal
coordination where by both traffic as well as users’ demand
and preferences can also be incorporated in the design.
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