Roll No : CE18B020 NAME :NEERAJ KUMAR

EXERCISE 3: SATURATION FLOW AND DELAY MEASUREMENT AT A

SIGNALIZED INTERSECTION
OBJECTIVES

● To determine the saturation flow on an approach of a signalized intersection.

● To calculate the average delay of vehicles on an approach of a signalized intersection.

THEORY

An intersection is a location where two or more roads carrying traffic streams in different directions
cross. At a signalized intersection (pre-timed signalization) the common space is periodically shared
by different conflicting flows according to a pre-defined strategy, which repeats at a fixed time
interval which is referred to as the cycle length. The time for which the traffic stream can utilize the
intersection is known as green time for that particular stream and the time during which the stream
cannot use the intersection is known as red time. Amber time is used to indicate the initiation of the
red time for that movement and during this time the intersection can be utilized. The cycle time is
the sum of green time, red time and amber time for a traffic stream.

Saturation flow is defined as the flow expressed in vehicle per hour that can be accommodated by
the lane group assuming that the green phase displayed for the 100 percent of the time. The
measurement of saturation flow is necessary to find the capacity of the approach near intersection
and delay experienced by the vehicle at the intersection. Delay is the measure of effectiveness and
operational quality of the intersection. Delay measures can be stated for a single vehicle, as an
average for all vehicles over a specified time period, or as an aggregate total value for all vehicles
over a specified time period. Aggregate delay is measured in total vehicle-seconds, vehicle-minutes,
or vehicle-hours for all vehicles in the specified time interval. Average individual delay is generally
stated in terms of seconds per vehicle for a specified time interval. The field measurement of
saturation flow is obtained from computation of average saturation headway (Equation 1). The
average delay at intersection with uniform arrival rate, at unsaturated and oversaturation conditions
is determined using Equations 2 and 3 respectively.

1
Saturation Flow= … … … … … … (1)
Average Saturation Headway

C ( 1−g /C )2
Du ,us = … … … … … … .(2)
2 ( 1−v /s )

T v C−g
D u , os= ( )
2 c
−1 +
2
… … … … … ….( 3)

D u ,us =Average delay for unsaturated conditions wit h uniformarrivals

D u , os=Average delay for oversaturated conditions wit huniform arrivals

C=C ycle lengt h

g= Effective¿ time

1
s=Saturation flow
g
c=Capacity = s
C
v= Arrival rate
T =Time period during w h ic h t h e arrival rate is greater t h an t h e departure rate
DATA COLLECTION AND EXTRACTION

● Selection of Study Location: The study was performed on a signalized intersection near Hotel
PSR, at Tirupati city of Andhra Pradesh (Fig. 1). This intersection contains traffic going
towards main city of Tirupati and contains vehicles from different legs. The intersection has
3 legs among which the two legs are a two-way divided and the other with undivided road

Study Approach

stretch.
● Video recoding at the study approach: To get the data videography method was used, video
of the vehicles passing through that intersection was taken for 1 hour (from 4:00 pm to 5:00
pm).

● Details of Signal Timings and arrival rate at Intersecation: The signal timings were recorded
by the manual observation at the intersection. The one way is free left having green time
always, the rest two have green, amber and red time as 41 seconds, 4 seconds and 40
seconds respectively. Hence, the cycle time is 85 seconds and the effctive green time (green
+ amber) is observed to be 45 seconds. The arrival rate was observed to be 1800 veh/hr.

● Extraction of data for average saturation headway: At the beginning of green time, the first
driver in the queue needs to observe and react to the signal change by accelerating through

the intersectionFigure
from1stand-still,
Location of the
whicStudy Section
results in aonrelatively
Tiruchanoor Road
long first headway. The second
driver could react and start accelerating while the first vehicle began moving. This results in
a shorter headway than the first, because the driver had an extra vehicle length in which to
Figure This
accelerate. SEQvariation
Figure \* ARABIC 1 Map continues
in headways of the intersection
until a study
certainlocation
number in of vehicles have

2
 crossed the intersection and start-up reaction and acceleration do not effect dthe headways.
From this point headways will remain relatively constant until all vehicles in the queue have
crossed the intersection or green time has ended. This constant headway is known as the
saturation headway and can start to occur anywhere between the third and sixth vehicle in
the queue. Generally it is assumed to start from the fourth vehicle. Hence, in order to
compute average saturation headway, the data regarding number of vehicles crossing the
stop line at the intersection is collected for each cycle from the recorded videos (Fig. 2) and
the stop line crossing time of which the fourth vehicle and the last vehicle during each Green
time designated as t4 and tn respectively are noted down (Table 1).

Stop Line

Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 2 Data extraction for saturation flow and delay computation from video

Table 1 Sample of extracted data from video

Cycle T4 Tn Tn-T4 N
no.
1 85.034 127.860 42.826 40
2 171.110 206.604 35.494 47

- - - - -
18 - - - -

● Extraction of data for arrival rate: To compute the arrival rate at the intersection the total
number of vehicles turning left, right and moving straight were recorded along with the time
period during every cycle.

DATA ANALYSIS

3
 ● Computation of Average saturation headway: The average saturation headway is calculated
for every cycle with the help of extracted data using the following equation (Equation 4). The
average of the average saturation headways from all the cycles is computed and known as
total average saturation headway.

tn−t 4
Average saturationh eadway for i t h cycle , hsi = … … … … … … … … .( 4 )
N −4
nc

∑ ❑ hsi
Average saturationh eadway ,h s= i=1
nc

W h ere ,
tn=Tim e at w h ic h last ve h icle crossed t h e∩.
t 4=Time at w h ic h 4 t h ve h icle crossed t h e∩.
N=Total number of ve h icles during t h at Gre e ntime
n c =Total no . of cycles

● Calculation of Saturation flow : From the total average saturation headway the saturation
flow of the intersection is calculated using Equation 5.

Saturation low (Ve h icles /h r )=3600 /(h s)… … … … … … …(5)

W h ere ,
h s= Average saturationh eadway of ve h icles (¿ seconds).

● Verification of unsaturated or oversaturated conditions: The intersection is examined for the

unsaturated or oversaturated conditions using the following criteria.

If vC ≤ sg → Unsaturation condition
If vC > sg →Oversa t urated condition
● Computing Average delay: The avergae delay per vehicle in seconds is obtained using either
of the equations 2 and 3 based on the unsaturated or oversaturated conditions of the
intersection.

RESULTS

● Average Saturation Headway = 0.0204(sec)

● Saturation Flow =49.02(veh/hr)

● Condition of study approach at Intersection (unsaturated/oversaturated)-

Unsaturated Condition

● Average Delay =11.508(sec/veh)

4
-----------------------------------------------