Engineering Technical College – Baghdad

Building & Construction Technology Engineering

Highway Engineering - Third Year
 
Traffic Flow  

Flow (q) is the equivalent hourly rate at which vehicles pass a point on a highway
during a specific time interval less than 1 hour, usually 15 mins.

Or

Where:

q = traffic flow in vehicles per unit time,

n = number of vehicles passing a point on a highway during time t, and
t = duration of time interval.

By using peak flow rate, peak- hour factor (PHF) can be estimated by using the
following equation:

Example:
The following counts were taken on an intersection approach during the morning
peak hour. Determine: (a) the hourly volume, (b) the peak rate of flow within the
hour, and (c) the peak hour factor.
Time Period Volume
8.00-8.15 a.m 150
8.15-8.30 a.m 155
8.30-8.45 a.m 165
8.45-9.00 a.m 160

1 
Instructor: Zainab M. Mohsin
Engineering Technical College – Baghdad
Building & Construction Technology Engineering
Highway Engineering - Third Year
 
Speed (u)
It is the distance traveled by a vehicle during a unit of time. It can be expressed in
miles per hour (mi/h), kilometers per hour (km/h), or feet per second (ft /sec).
Types of Speed
There are main different types of speed as explained below:
Time mean speed ( ): it is the arithmetic mean of the speeds of vehicles passing a
point on a highway during an interval of time. It can be found from the following
equation:

Where:
n = number of vehicles passing a point on the highway;
= speed of the ith vehicle (ft /sec)
Space mean speed : it is the harmonic mean of the speeds of vehicles passing a
point on a highway during an interval of time.

1
∑

Where:
= space mean speed (ft /sec); n = number of vehicles
= the time it takes the ith vehicle to travel across a section of highway (sec)
=speed of the ith vehicle (ft /sec); L = length of section of highway (ft)

2 
Instructor: Zainab M. Mohsin
Engineering Technical College – Baghdad
Building & Construction Technology Engineering
Highway Engineering - Third Year
 
Note:
Time mean speed is always higher than the space mean speed. The relation
between these two types can be illustrated from the following relation which is
developed by Garber and Sankar:
0.966 3.541
Example:
Three vehicles are recorded with speeds of 30, 40, and 50 mi/h. Find average time
mean speed and space mean speed for these three vehicles to traverse a section of 1
mile.
Solution:
By using the previous equation of time mean speed
40 /
In order to calculate the total time, it has to be computed by using the given speed
and distance for all the vehicles as following:
T 0.033 T 0.025 T 0.02
3 1
38.9
0.033 0.025 0.02

Density (k)
Density (k) or concentration: it is the number of vehicles traveling over a unit
length of highway at an instant in time. The unit length is usually 1 mile (mi)

thereby making vehicles per mile (veh/mi) the unit of density.

.

The density can be estimated from the speed and flow rate as following:

3 
Instructor: Zainab M. Mohsin
Engineering Technical College – Baghdad
Building & Construction Technology Engineering
Highway Engineering - Third Year
 

Where:
k is density (veh/mi); q is the traffic flow (veh/h),
u is the average speed (space mean speed in mi/h).
To illustrate the meaning of density, let’s look at the following picture:

For the given example in the figure: k=3vehicles/segment length.

Time Headway (h)
Time headway (h) is the difference between the time the front of a vehicle arrives
at a point on the highway and the time the front of the next vehicle arrives at that
same point. Time headway is usually expressed in seconds.
The relationship between traffic flow and average time headway is:

Space Headways (d)
Space headway (d) is the distance between the front of a vehicle and the front of
the following vehicle and is usually expressed in feet or meter.
Gap Headway
It is the difference in time between the time the rear of the leading vehicle and the
front of the following vehicle. Gap headway is usually expressed in seconds.
Clear spacing

4 
Instructor: Zainab M. Mohsin
Engineering Technical College – Baghdad
Building & Construction Technology Engineering
Highway Engineering - Third Year
 
Clear spacing is the difference in length between the time the rear of the leading
vehicle and the front of the following vehicle. Gap headway is usually expressed in
feet or meter.
To understand the previous expressions, let’s take the following example:

Example:
Five vehicles, as shown in the figure below, are traveling at constant speeds on
section of 230m length. Assuming all vehicles have the same length of 4m. If the
speeds and the clear spacing between vehicles are as shown in the figure, estimate
the following:
1) Average space mean speed
2) Average time mean speed
3) Traffic density
4) Average time headway arriving a section A-A
5) Average clear spacing

5 
Instructor: Zainab M. Mohsin
Engineering Technical College – Baghdad
Building & Construction Technology Engineering
Highway Engineering - Third Year
 
Solution:
1- Space mean speed:

5
1 1 1 1 1 1
∑
75 80 75 76 80
77.13 /
2- Time mean speed:

1 75 80 75 76 80
77.2 /
5

3‐ Traffic density:
. 5
21.7 /
0.23
4‐ Estimation of average time headway:
30 4
2 1.61
76 1000
3600
2 1.61
80 8
3 4.224
75 1000
3600
3 4.224 1.61 2.614
140 12
4 6.84
80 1000
3600
4 6.84 4.224 2.614

6 
Instructor: Zainab M. Mohsin
Engineering Technical College – Baghdad
Building & Construction Technology Engineering
Highway Engineering - Third Year
 
175 16
5 9.168
75 1000
3600
5 9.168 6.84 2.232
1.61 2.614 2.616 2.323
2.268
4
5- Average clear spacing:
30 50 60 35
43.75
4
EQUIVALENT SIGNLE AXLE LOAD (ESAL):

It is converting the number of repetitions of a given axle load, either single,

tandem, or tridem, into an equivalent number of repetitions of an 18-kip (80-kN)
single-axle load. (i.e. it is converting mixed loads to standard or equivalent loads).
TANDEM AXLE LOAD:
Tandem axle load is the total load transmitted to the road by two consecutive axles
extending across the full width of the vehicle.

TRIDEM AXLE LOAD:

Triple (tridem) axle load is the total load transmitted to the road by three
consecutive axles extending across the full width of the vehicle.

7 
Instructor: Zainab M. Mohsin
Engineering Technical College – Baghdad
Building & Construction Technology Engineering
Highway Engineering - Third Year
 

GROWTH FACTOR:
Traffic growth, or no growth, must be considered when determining the amount of
ESALs for determining the thickness of a pavement. An example of no growth
would be an employee parking lot or pay to park facility, where the capacity is
expected at 100 percent and the parking lot is constrained by property boundaries
and the number of parking spaces. Traffic growth rates are used by applying the
growth rate percentage compounded annually to the first year traffic estimate or
ESALs.
The Asphalt Institute and the AASHTO design guide recommend the use of traffic
over the entire design period to determine the total growth factor, as indicated by

8 
Instructor: Zainab M. Mohsin
Engineering Technical College – Baghdad
Building & Construction Technology Engineering
Highway Engineering - Third Year
 
Note:
When there is knowledge of a significant future event that will occur at set date in
the future with a different growth rate, the design period would be broken into two
separate periods – applying the second growth rate to the new second design period
first year traffic estimate.
Example
An engineer is designing a two-lane rural roadway that has a traffic growth rate of
4 percent. The design period is 10 years and the annual equivalent 80 kN single
axle load (ESALs) is 8,000 (mostly cars). It is known that 6 years later, suburban
sprawl will cause the traffic growth rate to increase to 12 percent. What is the total
ESALs for the design period?
Solution:
6
1 0.04 1
6 8000 53064
0.04
1 0.12 1
4 53064 253590
0.12
10 253590

9 
Instructor: Zainab M. Mohsin