TRAFFIC FLOW FUNDAMENTALS

HOW WILL YOU DESCRIBE A

TRAFFIC?
 To illustrate, imagine the development of
traffic along the expressway.
 In the early morning, drivers can freely
choose their own speeds because there
are only very few vehicles on the road.
 As traffic density increases, the drivers
are constrained to adjust their speeds.
 Traffic condition becomes very unstable
when the capacity of the highway has
already been reached, after which a stop
and go condition will be experienced if
the situation worsens.
TYPES OF FLOW
 Flow occurring at long sections of
road where vehicles are not required
to stop by any cause external to the
traffic stream is called uninterrupted
flow.
 On the other hand, flow occurring at
intersections or driveways where
vehicles are required to stop by any
cause outside the traffic stream - such
as traffic signs (STOP or YIELD), traffic
signal lights, etc. - is called interrupted
flow
Major Traffic Variables

Uninterrupted flow can be described

using any of the following traffic
variables:

A. Flow rate or volume

B. Speed
C. Density or concentration
 FLOW RATE OR VOLUME
 Flow rate is defined as the number of
vehicles passing a point during a
specified period of time. It is often
referred to as volume when measured
over an hour.
 Flow Rate q may be expressed as:
q=
EXAMPLE 1
Let us suppose a 15-minute count of vehicles bound for
Manila was conducted at a particular location on
Quezon Avenue. A summary is shown in the table
below:
SPEED
 Speed is defined as rate of motion in
distance per unit time.
 When describing traffic stream, two
types of speed are used: time mean
speed and space mean speed.
TIME MEAN SPEED

 Also called spot speed, time mean

speed is simply the arithmetic mean
of the speeds of vehicles passing a
point within a given interval of time.
EXAMPLE 2:
The speed of 25 cars was observed. 10 cars
were noted to travel at 35 kph, 8 cars at 40
kph, 2 cars at 50 kph, and 5 cars at 45 kph.
Assuming that each car was traveling at
constant speed, determine the time mean
speed.
SPACE MEAN SPEED

 Space mean speed is used to

describe the rate of movement of a
traffic stream within a given section of
road.
 It is the speed based on the average
travel time of vehicles in the stream
within the section.
 It is also called the harmonic mean
speed.
 If n vehicles are observed at an
instant of time t, the space mean
speed is computed as follows:
 DENSITY

 Density is defined as the number of

vehicles in a given length of road at
an instant point in time.
 If n vehicles are found within the
section L, density k is computed as:
k=
 Among these three variables, density
proves to be the most difficult or
expensive to observe.