CE 328 : Transportation Engineering Lab

Experiment No. 9 -Spot Speed Study

Autumn Semester – 2021

Department of Civil Engineering
IIT Bombay
Contents
1. Introduction
2. Objective of study
3. Application
4. Apparatus Required
5. Procedure
6. Calculation & Discussion
7. Dataset
8. Inference
 Spot Speed Study
1. Introduction
• Speed is defined as the distance travelled by a vehicle during a
unit of time and is generally expressed in Kilometres per hour
(Km/hr) or Meter per second (m/sec). It generally describes the
quality of the journey and the performance of the road network
in accommodating traffic demand

• Speeds vary with the type of road and traffic volume. It is higher
along freeways and highways and lower along collector and
local streets. Speed is affected by factors such as lane width
sight distance, etc.
Gurgaon _Delhi
• Speed data are critical inputs to many design, control and safety
aspects of traffic engineering.
2. Objective of study
To determine the spot speeds of vehicles on a particular traffic facility,
and develop cumulative frequency distribution curve.

Definitions:
1. Spot speed: The instantaneous speed of a vehicle at specified location.
2. Time mean speed: Average speed of all vehicles passing a point over a duration
of time. It is the simple average of spot speed.
Vtm = ∑vi/n
3. Free-flow speed: The average speed of vehicles on a given facility, measured
under low volume conditions, when drivers tend to drive at their desired speed is
known as free-flow speed.
3. Applications
• Design of geometric features

• For regulation and control of traffic operations

• To establish safe speed limits.
• Speed zoning
• Signal design

• For analyzing causes of accidents

• Before-after study related to improvement

• To study the traffic capacity, problems of congestion on roads etc.

 4. Apparatus Required
1.Radar gun & writing pad

• Working phenomenon - Doppler effect Source: Google image

• Automatically give the speed of vehicles

accurately
• Accuracy: +/ 1.5 to 3 kmph
• Angle is within 20 degree

Source: IITB traffic speed survey at Mumbai

Example: Field Survey at Mumbai
 Data Collection Table
Location:
Weather:
Type of Road:
Trap Length:

Sr. No Vehicle class (2W Speed (kmph) Sr. No Vehicle class (2W Speed (kmph)
3W,Car,LCV, Truck, Bus ) 3W,Car,LCV, Truck, Bus )

1 21
2 22
3 23
4 24
5 25
6 26
7 27
8 28
9 29
10 30
11 31
12 32
13 33
14 34
15 35
16 36
17 37
18 38
19 39
20 40
 2. Trap length method
• Procedure:
• Select the suitable Straight section of highway segment for the present study.
• Marking the proper trap length in the selected segment. The section is called as the
test section.
• The recommended trap lengths (Institute of Traffic Engineers-1965) for manual
speed studies are as follows:

Average Speed of traffic (kmph) Recommended Trap Length(m)

Below 40 25
40 - 65 50
Over 65 75

• Video tapping technique can be used to record the traffic movement over a period of time at
selected segment (to be installed on a height)
Contd:
1 II

Vehicle Class Start Point Time End Point (Time) Trap-Length (Meter) Speed (KMPH)
(T1 seconds) (T2 seconds) (L)

Car 00:00:05 00:00:10 20 ((L)/ (t2- t1))*3.6

Bike …………….. …………. ………. ………………….

Contd:
• The speed of the vehicles can be extracted using a pre-defined trap length. (Example: 50m)
• Recorded video footage is played in any media player.
• As soon as the vehicle passes the first reference point, it is noted as T1 is the initial time point.
(noted media player time)
• After few seconds, the same vehicle has passes to the second reference point. It is noted as T2
time (noted media player time)
• Knowing the trap length (L) and trap length crossing time (T) of each vehicle category (T2-T1)
on that segment.
• Find out the vehicle speed by using speed distance relationship equation (D=Velocity*time)
• Repeated the same step again for each of the different vehicle classes considered for the study.
• Based on this method we can extract the sufficient sample based on our requirement. For this
method we can extract minimum 50 vehicle class per category.
• According to make the frequency table based on each category of vehicle speed.
• Draw the speed distribution curve, cumulative frequency distribution curve and identify the 15th,
50th, 85th and 98th percentile speeds.
6.Calculations
• Grouping of speed data and tabular presentation :

Speed class Mid point speed No. of vehicles (fi) (%) Cumulative
limits (kmph) (kmph) (xi) Frequency (%)
(1) (2) (3) (4) Frequency
(5)

26-30 28 10 (10/sum Ans

(3))*100
30-34 32 25 ? ?
34-38 36 75 ? ?
,, ,, ,, ? ?
,, ,, ,, ? ?
,, ,, ,, ? ?
,, ,, ,, ? ?
Sum of (3)
 8. Results and Discussion

• The cumulative distribution curve is plotted with the vertical axis as the percentage of vehicles traveling ,
below the posted speed on the horizontal axis. (Source: Khanna publishers_ L.R Kadiyali)
Mean Speed

Median speed The speed at the middle value in a series of spot

speeds. or, 50th-percentile speed
Modal speed The speed value that occurs most frequently in a
sample of speeds
ith-percentile The spot speed below which i percent of the vehicles
speed travel, e.g. 85th-percentile speed

Cumulative percentage
85%
Frequency (%)

of speed (%)
50%

Speed (KMPH)
9. Inference
• Descriptive statistics can computed from the speed data collected.
These statistics describe the important characterises of the speed
distribution of each category of vehicle in particular facilities.
• Significance of the percentile speed

Percentile Speed Significance

98th percentile speed Design Speed
85th percentile speed Safe Speed
50th percentile speed Median Speed
15th percentile speed Minimum speed
References
• Traffic Engineering and Transport Planning text book by L.R Kadiyali,
Khanna publishers.
• Kadiyali et.al, speed flow characteristics on Indian Highways vol.52-2, Indian
Road Congress, New Delhi.
• Kadiyali et.al, Free speeds of vehicles on Indian roads, Paper no.343, journal
of the Indian roads congress, vol.42-3, New Delhi.
Thank You !
7.Datasets

Groups Observation Sheet

Group 1 Date sheet -1

Group 2 Date sheet -2

Group 3 Date sheet -3

Group 4 Date sheet -4

Tasks
1. Collect data and record in Data Collection Table
2. Prepare Frequency Table
3. Plot Frequency Distribution Curve & Cumulative Frequency Distribution
Curve
4. Find - Vehicle category(only one class) and combined all:
➢Mean
➢Median
➢Mode
➢Design speed (98th Percentile)
➢Safe Speed (85th Percentile)
➢ Minimum Speed (15th Percentile)
1. One vehicle category(2w/3w/4w/Bus/truck) ( 2 graphs and frequency table )
➢Mean
➢Median
➢Mode
➢Design speed (98th Percentile)
➢Safe Speed (85th Percentile)
➢ Minimum Speed (15th Percentile)
2. Combined vehicle category ( 2 graphs and frequency table )
➢Mean
➢Median
➢Mode
➢Design speed (98th Percentile)
➢Safe Speed (85th Percentile)
➢ Minimum Speed (15th Percentile)