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42 Volumecapacityratio
42 Volumecapacityratio
42 Volumecapacityratio
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2.1 Traffic volume
AADT and vertical alignment inputs to CBA6 are used to calculate the volume of traffic on the road using passenger car
equivalents (PCE). The AADT value is converted into PCEs to measure traffic volume.
PCE factors for each vehicle type are shown by Table 1 for example, a B-double on a section of road with an entire grade
of 4% is equivalent in volume to 8.1 passenger cars.
Where:
On a flat road (100% flat) with AADT of 1000, made up of 616 private cars, 264 commercial cars, 50 rigid vehicles, 10
buses, 50 semis and 10 B-doubles, the corresponding traffic volume is given by:
Therefore the traffic volume of the road in PCE is 1146. This is notably different from the AADT of 1000.
The formula to calculate AADT when the traffic growth rate is linear is given in Equation 2.
Where:
•• GR = growth rate
•• x = year of calculation
AADT for a given road is 1000 and the linear growth rate is assumed to be 3% p.a. AADT in Year 5 is given by:
Note: When using the linear growth forecast, future trends are based solely on the AADT in the year selected for
extrapolation.
A compound growth rate is a growth rate which is compounded annually, whereas a linear growth rate results in a
constant increase in traffic each year.
Using an AADT of 1000, compounded annually at 4% for 5 years, the calculated AADT is given below:
Table 2 lists the hourly capacities in PCE for each MRS. Hourly capacity is dependent on the seal type (undivided or
divided) and the seal width.
Note: MRS is derived from the Western Australia MRS classification: Austroads (AP-R264/05).
Default peak hour capacity percentages are shown by Table 3. These default figures are used to assess the percentage of
AADT that travel during peak periods.
Source: TMR.
TMR assumes that 10% of AADT on a national highway travels during peak periods. Similarly, 12.5% of daily traffic
travels in peak periods on urban dual carriageways.
Where:
The hourly capacity rate is set by the corresponding MRS and is a function of the seal width. In CBA6, roads with larger
seal widths are assumed to accommodate more vehicles per hour.
A national highway with a model road state of 10 would have an hourly capacity of 2500, see Table 2, and a peak hour
capacity factor of 10%, see Table 3. In this example, the road capacity is given below:
Note: Peak period (1 hour) is determined in CBA6 based on the system user’s selection of road description and MRS.
The capacity factor is thus used to determine the capacity of the road which in turn influences the VCR. This form of
modelling is known as free flow.
Where:
The VCR is a measure of the level of congestion on a road given the traffic volume and road capacity. When the VCR
reaches 1, this indicates that the road is operating at 100% capacity.
Using the examples provided in Sections 2.1 and 2.3, the corresponding VCR is:
This example illustrates that the current road volume is approximately 4.6% of total road capacity.