DEVELOPMENT OF TRAFFIC FLOW MODEL ON

SUBURBAN ROAD
In our daily life, there are numerous essential services that we can’t
overlook, roadway service is one of them. To organize and operate the
service properly and efficiently we need to study on various characteristics
of this roadway traffic. But it is not so simple to overcome the complexity
and challenges provided by our day to day traffic, during the analysis
period. We need some computerized exploration to comprehend the traffic
nature.
Simulations models are the representation of the real world systems in
a mathematical and logical way. Traffic simulation is analysis of the traffic
situation in a systematic, computerized and experimental way through
some traffic models, which gives us the concept of traffic propagation.
Traffic simulation can be classified as Microscopic, Mesoscopic and
Macroscopic as per the interaction in between driver-driver or driver-road.
Microscopic simulation deals with individual vehicle and their interaction at
a higher level of details. Microsimulation is an inevitable tool for analysis
and interpretation of real world situation. In developed countries, the
prevailing traffic is predominantly composed of passenger cars and is
generally called as ‘homogeneous’ traffic. However, in most of the less
developed countries, traffic is found to be composed of a wide variety of
vehicle types including two and three-wheeled vehicles and also, non-
motorized vehicles. Since, the static and dynamic characteristics of these
vehicles are considerably different; they share the same road space
without any physical segregation and eventually, result in a traffic stream
which is fundamentally different than that of ‘homogeneous’ traffic, known
as ‘heterogeneous’ traffic.
Most of the national highway and state highway system in India is of
two lane and traffic flow on Indian highway is quite interesting to be studied
because of two reasons. First, the multi-class traffic with vehicles such as
cars and pickups having high maneuverability and heavy vehicles such as
trucks and buses having low maneuverability. The speed of these vehicles
vary from 40 to 100 km/h. traffic movement on Indian road may be said
to be quasi-lane disciplined, with some vehicles following lane discipline
and many others not. Moreover, its composition and the level of lane
discipline may change significantly based on the traffic flow-level. Such
lack of lane discipline can be attributed to composition of factors, namely
level of enforcement and education. Indian drivers are not conscious about
the importance of sticking to their lanes other than overtaking. There are
neither video cameras mounted at selected locations of the roads nor a
central monitoring system that report violations. Consequently, the
vehicles tend to take any lateral positions along the width of roadway based
on space availability. When such different types of vehicles with varying
static and dynamic characteristics are allowed to mix and move on same
roadway facility, a variable set of longitudinal and transverse distribution
of vehicles may be detected from time to time. Hence, highways remain as
a heterogeneous traffic characterized by a low level of lane discipline.
The behavior of the mixed traffic being very interactive, neither a
mathematical nor a physical model is amenable for carrying out
experimental studies. Computer simulation modeling is better suited for
studying various traffic characteristics, as they are more efficient,
economic and flexible. Simulation models can be used to perform
experiments that would be impossible in the field. A simulation model
incorporating traffic and driver behavior is developed to study the effect of
traffic mix, slow moving vehicles and directional distribution on capacity of
two-lane road.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Simulation has been acknowledged as one of the best tools for
modeling the traffic flow under both homogeneous and heterogeneous
conditions. Here are some literature reviews on traffic simulation-
MARWA and RAMASESHAN (1978): They used the simulation
technique to study the vehicular interaction in heterogeneous i.e. in mixed
traffic flow. The simulation was framed for two lane two way traffic which
was included with overtaking and restricted stream logics. For
homogeneous traffic Simulations were performed for similar cars at
different volume levels and for heterogeneous traffic two types of vehicles
were considered-passenger car and one of the other vehicles being either
truck, scooter, bullock-cart, horse drawn vehicle or bicycle. Speed volume
relationship was developed for vehicle combinations and LOS was
calculated in terms of operating speed of passenger cars. The result
indicated that the interaction between vehicles was function of volume
level and traffic composition.
RAMANAYYA (1988): He developed simulation model for mixed traffic
flow on single-lane one way, single-lane two way and two-lane two way
roads. The model assumed car following logic to maintain safe gap and
also assumed that any fast vehicle would overtake the slower one, provided
the lateral clearance is higher than prescribed minimum value. Validation
of the model was based on comparison observed and simulated speed
distribution.
KHAN et al (2000): This is basically a reference paper on various
adopted simulation models on heterogeneous traffic till 2000. The overall
study shows that the characteristics of mixed traffic depend on roadway
geometry, prevailing traffic condition and static and dynamic properties of
vehicles in the traffic stream. Driver behavior is also an important
parameter in unique decision making process while driving on such mixed
condition. It was also concluded that, for studying mixed traffic linear
density measurements are inadequate, thus requiring a non-dimensional
measure such as total vehicle area projected per unit area of roadway, or
areal density. It also concluded that the values of equivalency depend on
traffic composition, degree of saturation and location. There is also a
requirement to further characterize heterogeneous traffic and this will help
in addressing model applicability and transferability issues
V. ARASAN et al. (2005): They adopted a methodology to simulate the
vehicles with wide ranging static and dynamic characteristics in
heterogeneous traffic flow and the traffic flow model was prepared in such
a way that the absence of lane discipline in mixed traffic flow was taken
into account. They treated the entire road space a single unit and the
vehicles were represented as rectangular blocks on the surface.
Representing the positions of vehicles on road surface and updating their
position using a coordinate system was found to be useful to replicate the
heterogeneous traffic from the road space. The model, in its present form
has the potential to segregate vehicles in major urban roads but it needs
further development to incorporate the effects of intersections, variation in
roadway geometry etc. to make it a complete package for studying
heterogeneous traffic.
PPDEY et al. (2008): A computer model was developed by them to
simulate the traffic flow from several location of two lane roads in India
incorporating all traffic characteristics like speed, placement, arrival,
acceleration, and overtaking characteristics of different types of vehicles.
The simulation program is coded in visual language and also been
animated. A number of simulation were performed to determine the
capacity of the two lane road and to study the effect of traffic mix over
capacity and speed. According to them capacity reduces as the directional
split moves away from the even one and also as proportion of the three
wheeler, tractor, or heavy slow vehicles increases in traffic stream. The
model can provide capacity and equivalency factor for different vehicles on
different level of traffic mix and lane directional distribution but it needs
further development to take into account the effect of shoulder condition
and road width.
V ARASAN et al (2010): T adopted a dynamic stochastic type discrete
event simulation in which the aspects of interest over heterogeneous traffic
flow are analyzed numerically with the aid of computer program. The model
was applied to measure one of the fundamental characteristics of traffic
flow i.e. concentration. It is a border term including both density and
occupancy. In this paper they proposed a new concept named ‘area-
occupancy’ to measure traffic concentration. It was found by using and
validating simulation model, that the new concept area-occupancy is a
valid measure and can represent the traffic concentration under
heterogeneous condition.
GUNDALIYA et al (2010): The model adopted here, used the concept
of minimal modelling aspect of cellular automata. This aspects were
modified for heterogeneous traffic flow dividing road stretch in grid of cells.
In this model, various traffic characteristics like acceleration, deceleration
and maximum speed of vehicles were incorporated. The position and speed
of the vehicles are assumed to be discrete and the speed changes
according to its interactions with other vehicles. The model was calibrated
and validated using real data and VISSIM. The results indicates that grid
based model can represent the complex heterogeneous traffic almost
properly. But the model requires more testing at different traffic conditions.
S.ARKATKAR et al (2016): They aimed to implement traffic flow model
on Indian urban expressway specifically Delhi-Gurgaon expressway and to
evaluate its capacity using micro-simulation model VISSIM 5.40. The
model was used to develop fundamental traffic-flow relationship, namely,
speed-flow, speed-area occupancy and flow-area occupancy for the traffic
flow levels starting from nearly-zero to its capacity. The validation result
gave satisfactory indication on replicating the heterogeneous traffic. The
simulation study suggested that for characterizing the effect in change in
traffic composition on traffic flow characteristics for an expressway, the
speed flow relationship is the most appropriate. The study further showed
that in mixed traffic condition, the capacity-level critical speed reduces
linearly with increase in percentage of trucks from 10 to 100% in the traffic
stream, comprising only two vehicle categories: cars and trucks. The
driver’s behavior considered in this study can be refined further to consider
many more physiological and psychological factors.
WORKING AREA AND PLAN
The revolution in the automobile industry and liberalized economy has led
to tremendous increase in the vehicle ownership levels in India. This has
been triggered in huge change in traffic characteristics on roadway
network. Further, the urbanization in India has an impact over the change
in traffic characteristics. India’s urban population went up from 25.86
million to 377.11 million during the period 1901 to 2011 at a rate of 3%
per year. Urbanization has also led to rapid motorization. Fig 1 shows the
growth in the number of registered motor vehicles from 1951 to 2013. In
fact, the growth rate in the number of vehicles has been more rapid than
in the population itself.

FIG-1 growth in number of registered vehicles from 1951 to 2013

The traffic composition on urban, suburban and rural roads are at some
degree different from one another.
The rural road network is vitally important for bringing social amenities,
education and health within reasonable reach to the villagers and transport
the production to the nearby market. Hence the traffic compositions for
that network are mainly different type of trucks, other vehicles to transport
agricultural product, animal drawn cart, motorized and non-motorized
cycle, small amount of passenger car etc. The level of heterogeneity in
rural roadway is less than that of urban and suburban roadway. Also the
traffic density and occupancy is less in rural roads. Hence the mobility of
traffic flow is higher than that of urban area. Simulating such traffic is not
so difficult, as there is less disturbance in traffic flow.
In case of urban roadway the heterogeneity level is much higher than
rural one. As an impact of urbanization vehicular ownership is its higher
extent in the cities of India. Transport related problems are very common
in urban areas. Many industrialized countries faces concern about
motorized vehicles, whereas, in some other parts of the world, such as
developing countries like India motorization is on rise but the main problem
is to manage the non-motorized vehicles on the roadway. Here large sized
motorized vehicles are in small proportion than the non-motorized vehicles
or small sized motorized vehicles. In urban roadway, traffic is mainly
composed of passenger cars, bikes, small sized transportation vehicles,
buses, some amount of heavy trucks, bicycles etc. These variety in traffic
composition causes a severe congestion, hence delay and disturbance in
our daily transportation.
Suburban road traffic is a unique example of heterogeneous or mixed
traffic. Here both the traffic from urban road as well as rural road get mixed
and create the traffic flow more haphazard and scattered. It causes severe
congestion and delay. Further, frequent platooning under such traffic
makes part of drivers reluctant to follow and they sometimes take
considerable amount of risk to overtake. Such type of maneuvers affects
lane-discipline unlike and safety as a consequence. Here least amount of
lane discipline can be seen. In heterogeneous traffic, continuous lateral
movement and heavy side friction are the two most important factors. In
suburban area these two factors can be sensed at its most severe and
dangerous form.

FIG-2 lane based homogeneous traffic and non-lane based

heterogeneous traffic
There are also some other factors that affect the traffic flow on suburban
road like unconsciousness of pedestrian, roadside parking, roadside
business, inappropriate signaling and maintenance. Here is no strict
enforcement of traffic rules which causes huge no of causalities as road
accidents.
Traffic problems are common in urban areas mostly in suburban areas.
Hence simulating the traffic pattern and characteristics is the most
important part. Most of the simulation studies were done over
homogeneous traffic, when it comes to the heterogeneous traffic some of
them converted mixed flow into a similar type of flow. But this technique
is rather questionable for the differences between them and it also reduces
the mixed characteristics of the traffic. As characteristics and type of every
vehicles are different from one another and each and every vehicle can
affect the traffic flow individually, it’s important to modify a
microsimulation model for this type of unique traffic.
This model can be used to further characterization of heterogeneous
traffic, to evaluate alternative treatment, as an element of design
procedure and also for safety analysis. Now a days industrialized nations
are looking forward promoting non-motorized slow vehicles as
environment-friendly modes of transport. Application of these vehicles may
demand heterogeneous traffic model to other context. Hence, further
development of traffic flow model will help the transport professionals to
design effective and appropriate control systems and better estimates the
vehicular emissions for heterogeneous traffic.
REFERENCES
Khan, S. I., and Maini, P. (2000) “Modeling heterogeneous traffic flow.” Transportation
Research Record, 1678, Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C., 234–241.

Ramanayya, T. V. (1988) “Highway capacity under mixed traffic conditions.” Traffic Eng.
Control, 29, 284–87.

Dey, P. P., Chandra, S. and Gangopadhyay, S. 2008. Simulation of mixed traffic flow on two-
lane roads, Journal of Transportation Engineering ASCE, 134, 361–369.

Arasan, V. T. and Koshy, R. Z. 2005. Methodology for modeling highly heterogeneous traffic
flow, Journal of Transportation Engineering, 131, 544–551.

Gundaliya, P. J., Mathew, T. V. and Dhingra, S. L. 2010. Heterogeneous traffic flow modelling
for an arterial using grid based approach, Journal of Advanced Transportation, 42, (4), 461–
491.

Marwah, B. R., and Ramaseshan, S. (1978). “Interaction between vehicles in mixed traffic flow
using simulation.” Highway Research Bulletin No. 8, Indian Roads Congress, New Delhi, 1–16.

Arasan, V.T. and Dhivya, G. (2010). “Simulation of highly heterogeneous traffic flow
characteristics”

Arkatkar, S.S., Velmurugan, S., Puvvala, R. and Narula, S. (2016) “Methodology for simulating
heterogeneous traffic on expressway in developing countries: a case study in India”

“Fundamental of traffic simulation” by Jaume Barcelo