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Passenger Car Equivalents for the Heterogeneous Traffic on Divided Rural Highways Based on Simulation Model

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Abstract

Passenger car equivalent (PCE) values are necessary for representing a traffic stream composing of different vehicle types in terms of a passenger car equivalent stream. For no lane-based heterogeneous traffic streams observed in India, previous studies mostly have suggested the vehicle-specific PCE values that vary dynamically with the flow rate and the traffic composition. The objective of this paper is to estimate and analyze the implications of the vehicle-specific PCE values that do not vary with the LOS and certain range of traffic composition, for the four-lane and the six-lane divided rural roads. Besides, the present study has also estimated the aggregate PCEs for the four-lane and the six-lane divided roads. The PCE values were estimated based on the macroscopic relationships generated for the base and the heterogeneous traffic streams. For defining the level of service, a new performance measure termed as the speed drop was chosen and it was found that it provides a relatively more accurate PCEs. Results show that for a particular traffic mix, constant PCEs can be used across different levels of service without much loss of accuracy. Aggregate PCEs for a particular traffic mix vary with the speed drop markedly at lower flow rates.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Holy Mary Institute of Technology and Science, Hyderabad, India

    Syed Omar Ballari

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati, Assam, 781039, India

    Pranab Kar & Mallikarjuna Chunchu

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  1. Syed Omar Ballari
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  2. Pranab Kar
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  3. Mallikarjuna Chunchu
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Correspondence to Pranab Kar.

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Ballari, S.O., Kar, P. & Chunchu, M. Passenger Car Equivalents for the Heterogeneous Traffic on Divided Rural Highways Based on Simulation Model. Transp. in Dev. Econ. 4, 14 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40890-018-0067-z

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