Fundamental parameters of traffic flow
Lecture notes in Transportation Systems Engineering
January 7, 2010
Traffic engineering pertains to the analysis of the behavior of traffic and to
design the facilities for a smooth, safe and economical operation of traffic.
Traffic flow, like the flow of water, has several parameters associated with
it.
The traffic stream parameters provide information regarding the nature of
traffic flow, which helps the analyst in detecting any variation in flow
characteristicis.
Understanding traffic behavior requires a thorough knowledge of traffic stream
parameters and their mutual relationships.
In this chapter the basic concepts of traffic flow is presented.
The traffic stream includes a combination of driver and vehicle behavior.
The driver or human behavior being non-uniform, traffic stream is also
non-uniform in nature.
It is influenced not only by the individual characteristics of both vehicle and
human but also by the way a group of such units interacts with each other.
Thus a flow of traffic through a street of defined characteristics will vary
both by location and time corresponding to the changes in the human behavior.
The traffic engineer, but for the purpose of planning and design, assumes
that these changes are within certain ranges which can be predicted.
For example, if the maximum permissible speed of a highway is 60 kmph, the
whole traffic stream can be assumed to move on an average speed of 40 kmph
rather than 100 or 20 kmph.
Thus the traffic stream itself is having some parameters on which the
characteristics can be predicted.
The parameters can be mainly classified as : measurements of quantity, which
includes density and flow of traffic and measurements of quality which includes
speed.
The traffic stream parameters can be macroscopic which characterizes the
traffic as a whole or microscopic which studies the behavior of individual
vehicle in the stream with respect to each other.
As far as the macroscopic characteristics are concerned, they can be
grouped as measurement of quantity or quality as described above, i.e. flow,
density, and speed.
While the microscopic characteristics include the measures of separation, i.e.
the headway or separation between vehicles which can be either time or space
headway.
The fundamental stream characteristics are speed, flow, and density and are
discussed below.
Speed is considered as a quality measurement of travel as the drivers and
passengers will be concerned more about the speed of the journey than the
design aspects of the traffic.
It is defined as the rate of motion in distance per unit of time.
Mathematically speed or velocity
is given by,
 |
(1) |
where,
is the speed of the vehicle in m/s,
is distance traveled in m
in time
seconds.
Speed of different vehicles will vary with respect to time and space.
To represent these variation, several types of speed can be defined.
Important among them are spot speed, running speed, journey speed, time mean
speed and space mean speed.
These are discussed below.
Spot speed is the instantaneous speed of a vehicle at a specified location.
Spot speed can be used to design the geometry of road like horizontal and
vertical curves, super elevation etc.
Location and size of signs, design of signals, safe speed, and speed zone
determination, require the spot speed data.
Accident analysis, road maintenance, and congestion are the modern fields of
traffic engineer, which uses spot speed data as the basic input.
Spot speed can be measured using an enoscope, pressure contact tubes or direct
timing procedure or radar speedometer or by time-lapse photographic methods.
It can be determined by speeds extracted from video images by recording the
distance traveling by all vehicles between a particular pair of frames.
Running speed is the average speed maintained over a particular course while
the vehicle is moving and is found by dividing the length of the course by the
time duration the vehicle was in motion.
i.e. this speed doesn't consider the time during which the vehicle is brought
to a stop, or has to wait till it has a clear road ahead.
The running speed will always be more than or equal to the journey speed, as
delays are not considered in calculating the running speed
Journey speed is the effective speed of the vehicle on a journey between two
points and is the distance between the two points divided by the total time
taken for the vehicle to complete the journey including any stopped time.
If the journey speed is less than running speed, it indicates that the journey
follows a stop-go condition with enforced acceleration and deceleration.
The spot speed here may vary from zero to some maximum in excess of the running
speed.
A uniformity between journey and running speeds denotes comfortable travel
conditions.
Time mean speed is defined as the average speed of all the vehicles passing a
point on a highway over some specified time period.
Space mean speed is defined as the average speed of all the vehicles occupying
a given section of a highway over some specified time period.
Both mean speeds will always be different from each other except in the
unlikely event that all vehicles are traveling at the same speed.
Time mean speed is a point measurement while space mean speed is a measure
relating to length of highway or lane, i.e. the mean speed of vehicles over a
period of time at a point in space is time mean speed and the mean speed over a
space at a given instant is the space mean speed.
There are practically two ways of counting the number of vehicles on a road.
One is flow or volume, which is defined as the number of vehicles that pass a
point on a highway or a given lane or direction of a highway during a specific
time interval.
The measurement is carried out by counting the number of vehicles,
,
passing a particular point in one lane in a defined period
.
Then the flow
expressed in vehicles/hour is given by
 |
(2) |
Flow is expressed in planning and design field taking a day as the measurement
of time.
The variation of volume with time, i.e. month to month, day to day, hour to
hour and within a hour is also as important as volume calculation.
Volume variations can also be observed from season to season. Volume will be above
average in a pleasant motoring month of summer, but will be more pronounced in
rural than in urban area.
But this is the most consistent of all the variations and affects the traffic
stream characteristics the least.
Weekdays, Saturdays and Sundays will also face difference in pattern.
But comparing day with day, patterns for routes of a similar nature often show
a marked similarity, which is useful in enabling predictions to be made.
The most significant variation is from hour to hour.
The peak hour observed during mornings and evenings of weekdays, which is
usually 8 to 10 per cent of total daily flow or 2 to 3 times the average hourly
volume.
These trips are mainly the work trips, which are relatively stable with time
and more or less constant from day to day.
Since there is considerable variation in the volume of traffic, several types
of measurements of volume are commonly adopted which will average these
variations into a single volume count to be used in many design purposes.
- Average Annual Daily Traffic(AADT) : The average 24-hour traffic
volume at a given location over a full 365-day year, i.e. the total number of
vehicles passing the site in a year divided by 365.
- Average Annual Weekday Traffic(AAWT) : The average 24-hour traffic
volume occurring on weekdays over a full year.
It is computed by dividing the total weekday traffic volume for the year by
260.
- Average Daily Traffic(ADT) : An average 24-hour traffic volume at
a given location for some period of time less than a year.
It may be measured for six months, a season, a month, a week, or as little as
two days.
An ADT is a valid number only for the period over which it was measured.
- Average Weekday Traffic(AWT) : An average 24-hour traffic volume
occurring on weekdays for some period of time less than one year, such as for a
month or a season.
The relationship between AAWT and AWT is analogous to that between AADT and
ADT.
Volume in general is measured using different ways like manual counting,
detector/sensor counting, moving-car observer method, etc.
Mainly the volume study establishes
the importance of a particular route with respect to the other routes,
the distribution of traffic on road, and
the fluctuations in flow.
All which eventually determines the design of a highway and the related
facilities.
Thus, volume is treated as the most important of all the parameters of traffic
stream.
Density is defined as the number of vehicles occupying a given length of
highway or lane and is generally expressed as vehicles per km.
One can photograph a length of road
, count the number of vehicles,
,
in one lane of the road at that point of time and derive the density
as,
 |
(3) |
This is illustrated in figure 1.
From the figure, the density is the number of vehicles between the point A and
B divided by the distance between A and B.
Density is also equally important as flow but from a different angle as it is
the measure most directly related to traffic demand.
Again it measures the proximity of vehicles in the stream which in turn affects
the freedom to maneuver and comfortable driving.
Figure 1:
Illustration of density
 |
From the fundamental traffic flow characteristics like flow, density, and speed,
a few other parameters of traffic flow can be derived.
Significant among them are the time headway, distance headway and travel time.
They are discussed one by one below.
The microscopic character related to volume is the time headway or simply
headway.
Time headway is defined as the time difference between any two successive
vehicles when they cross a given point.
Practically, it involves the measurement of time between the passage of one
rear bumper and the next past a given point.
If all headways
in time period,
, over which flow has been measured are
added then,
 |
(4) |
But the flow is defined as the number of vehicles
measured in time
interval
, that is,
 |
(5) |
where,
is the average headway.
Thus average headway is the inverse of flow.
Time headway is often referred to as simply the headway.
Another related parameter is the distance headway.
It is defined as the distance between corresponding points of two successive
vehicles at any given time.
It involves the measurement from a photograph, the distance from rear bumper of
lead vehicle to rear bumper of following vehicle at a point of time.
If all th space headways in distance
over which the density has been
measured are added,
 |
(6) |
But the density (
) is the number of vehicles
at a distance of
,
that is
 |
(7) |
Where,
is average distance headway.
The average distance headway is the inverse of density and is sometimes called
as spacing.
Travel time is defined as the time taken to complete a journey.
As the speed increases, travel time required to reach the destination also
decreases and viceversa.
Thus travel time is inversely proportional to the speed.
However, in practice, the speed of a vehicle fluctuates over time and the
travel time represents an average measure.
Time space diagram is a convenient tool in understanding the movement of
vehicles.
It shows the trajectory of vehicles in the form of a two dimensional plot.
Time space diagram can be plotted for a single vehicle as well as multiple
vehicles.
They are discussed below.
Taking one vehicle at a time, analysis can be carried out on the position of
the vehicle with respect to time.
This analysis will generate a graph which gives the relation of its position on
a road stretch relative to time.
This plot thus will be between distance
and time
and
will be a
functions the position of the vehicle for every t along the road stretch.
This graphical representation of
in a
plane is a curve which is
called as a trajectory.
The trajectory provide an intuitive, clear, and complete summary of vehicular
motion in one dimension.
Figure 2:
Time space diagram for a single vehicle
 |
In figure 2(a), the the distance
goes on increasing with
respect to the origin as time progresses.
The vehicle is moving at a smooth condition along the road way.
In figure 2(b), the vehicle at first moves with a smooth
pace after reaching a position reverses its direction of movement.
In figure 2(c), the vehicle in between becomes stationary and
maintains the same position.
From the figure, steeply increasing section of
denote a rapidly
advancing vehicle and horizontal portions of
denote a stopped vehicle
while shallow sections show a slow-moving vehicle.
A straight line denotes constant speed motion and curving sections denote
accelerated motion; and if the curve is concave downwards it denotes
acceleration.
But a curve which is convex upwards denotes deceleration.
Time-space diagram can also be used to determine the fundamental parameters of
traffic flow like speed, density and volume.
It can also be used to find the derived characteristics like space headway and
time headway.
Figure 3 shows the time-space diagram for a set of vehicles
traveling at constant speed.
Density, by definition is the number of vehicles per unit length.
From the figure, an observer looking into the stream can count 4 vehicles
passing the stretch of road between
and
at time
.
Hence, the density is given as
 |
(8) |
We can also find volume from this time-space diagram.
As per the definition, volume is the number of vehicles counted for a
particular interval of time.
From the figure 3 we can see that 6 vehicles are present between
the time
and
.
Therefore, the volume
is given as
 |
(9) |
Again the averages taken at a specific location (i.e., time ranging over an
interval) are called time means and those taken at an instant over a space
interval are termed as space means.
Another related definition which can be given based on the time-space
diagram is the headway.
Space headway is defined as the distance between corresponding points of two
successive vehicles at any given time.
Thus, the vertical gap between any two consecutive lines represents space
headway.
The reciprocal of density otherwise gives the space headway between vehicles at
that time.
Similarly, time headway is defined as the time difference between any two
successive vehicles when they cross a given point.
Thus, the horizontal gap between the vehicles represented by the lines gives
the time headway.
The reciprocal of flow gives the average time headway between vehicles at that
point.
Figure 3:
Time space diagram for many vehicles
 |
Speed, flow and density are the basic parameters of traffic flow.
Different measures of speed are used in traffic flow analysis like spot speed,
time mean speed, space mean speed etc.
Time-space diagram also can be used for determining these parameters.
Speed and flow of the traffic stream can be computed using moving observer
method.
- The instantaneous speed of a vehicle at a specified location is called
- Spot speed
- Journey speed
- Running speed
- Time mean speed
- Which of the following is not a derived characteristic?
- Time headway
- Distance headway
- Travel time
- Density
- The instantaneous speed of a vehicle at a specified location is called
- Spot speed
- Journey speed
- Running speed
- Time mean speed
- Which of the following is not a derived characteristic?
- Time headway
- Distance headway
- Travel time
- Density
Prof. Tom V. Mathew
2010-01-07