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Determination of Passenger Car Unit for Urban Roads: A Case Study in Addis Ababa

Received: 8 June 2020    Accepted: 15 June 2021    Published: 6 September 2021
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Abstract

In Ethiopia, specifically on Addis Ababa city roads operating, vehicles are mixed with varying static and dynamic traffic characteristics that are very challenging for the traffic analyst to come up with a sole solution to the traffic malady. Under heterogeneous traffic, each vehicle type cannot be compared with other vehicle types since it shows different effects on the road. It could be observed that the majority of the drivers in Addis Ababa road networks do not follow proper lane discipline to use any available space on the road sections. Currently, Ethiopia is using the passenger car unit values from other countries manual, which doesn't represent the local traffic and roadway conditions. This study was initiated to establish the PCU values that will cater the local settings. Hence, this study was focused on estimating the PCU values of multilane highways in Addis Ababa city and determining the influence of traffic volume and width of the road on the values of PCU. The PCUs were estimated for four vehicle types based on the variation of traffic volume and carriageway width. Dynamic PCU method was used to determine PCU values, and a linear regression analysis was performed for model development. The developed model is used to estimate PCU values having the same traffic conditions and roadway conditions found in other countries. The study results indicated that as the traffic volume and carriageway width increases, the passenger car unit value also increases. Also, it was found out that the results of PCU values in this study showed higher values than those provided in Highway Capacity Manual (HCM). Hence, the PCU values obtained are recommended to reflect the existing traffic condition in the locality.

Published in American Journal of Construction and Building Materials (Volume 5, Issue 2)
DOI 10.11648/j.ajcbm.20210502.13
Page(s) 57-63
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Passenger Car Unit, Dynamic PCU, Traffic Volume, Carriageway Width, Regression Analysis

References
[1] Praveen, Prema Somanathan, and Venkatachalam Thamizh Arasan. "influence of traffic mix on pcu value of vehicles under heterogeneous traffic conditions." International Journal for Traffic and Transport Engineering 3, no. 3 (2013): 302-330.
[2] Mehar, A., S. Chandra, and S. Velmurugan. "Passenger Car Units at Different Levels of Service for Capacity Analysis of Multilane Interurban Highways in India." Journal of Transportation Engineering, January 2014: 81-88.
[3] West, James E., and Glens Thurgood. "Developing Passenger-Car Equivalents for left-turning trucks at a compressed diamond interchange." transportation research record 1484, n.d.: 90-97.
[4] M. Rahman and F. Nakamura. "Measuring passenger car equivalent for no-motorized vehicles (rickshaws) at mid-block sections." journal of the eastern Asia society for transportation studies, Vol, 6, 2005: 119-126.
[5] Sarraj, Yahya. "Passenger Car Equivalents at Signalized Intersections for Heavy and Medium Trucks and Animal Driven Carts in Gaza, Palestine." International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering, 2014: 80-88.
[6] Gani, Fadly Arirja, Toshio Yoshii, and Shinya Kurauchi. "Estimation of Dynamic Value of Passenger Car Unit in the Mixed Traffic." Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies 12 (2017): 1666-1675.
[7] Olwan, Fatema Khames. Passenger Car Equivalent for Motorcycles and Three-wheelers at Signalized intersection in Gaza City, Palestine. 2017.
[8] Aggarwal, Praveen. "Passenger Car Unit Value for Trucks using Fuzzy model." Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering 2 (2011).
[9] P. Roess, Roger, Elena S. Prassa, and William R. Mcshane. Traffic engineering. Third edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458: Pearson Education, Inc, 2004.
[10] Mondal, Satyajit, Sandip Chakraborty, Sudip Kumar Roy, and Ankit Gupta. "capacity and dynamic passenger car unit estimation for heterogeneous traffic stream of urban arterials: a case study of indian metropolis." Semantics Scholar. 2016. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/a2bb/c48dd6b13e1603dae24594d6f791c51a94d6.pdf (accessed 1 13, 2020).
[11] N, M. Mardani, S. Chandra, and I. Ghosh. "Passenger Car Unit of Vehicles on Undivided Intercity Roads in India." Procedia Computer Science, 2015: 926-936.
[12] Ethiopian road authority ERA. "pavement design manual." Vol. Volume I. 2013.
[13] Tadesse, Firehun. Analysis of capacity and traffic flow characteristics of mixed traffic on addis ababa ring road. Addis ababa, march, 2019.
[14] Chandra, S., and P. K. Sikdar. "Factors affecting PCU in mixed traffic situations on urban roads." Road & Transport Research 9, no. 3 (2000): 40-50.
[15] Highway Capacity Manual. uninterupted flow. washington: TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH BOARD, 2010.
Cite This Article
  • APA Style

    Helen Hordofa Tullu, Emer Tucay Quezon. (2021). Determination of Passenger Car Unit for Urban Roads: A Case Study in Addis Ababa. American Journal of Construction and Building Materials, 5(2), 57-63. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajcbm.20210502.13

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    ACS Style

    Helen Hordofa Tullu; Emer Tucay Quezon. Determination of Passenger Car Unit for Urban Roads: A Case Study in Addis Ababa. Am. J. Constr. Build. Mater. 2021, 5(2), 57-63. doi: 10.11648/j.ajcbm.20210502.13

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    AMA Style

    Helen Hordofa Tullu, Emer Tucay Quezon. Determination of Passenger Car Unit for Urban Roads: A Case Study in Addis Ababa. Am J Constr Build Mater. 2021;5(2):57-63. doi: 10.11648/j.ajcbm.20210502.13

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ajcbm.20210502.13,
      author = {Helen Hordofa Tullu and Emer Tucay Quezon},
      title = {Determination of Passenger Car Unit for Urban Roads: A Case Study in Addis Ababa},
      journal = {American Journal of Construction and Building Materials},
      volume = {5},
      number = {2},
      pages = {57-63},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ajcbm.20210502.13},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajcbm.20210502.13},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ajcbm.20210502.13},
      abstract = {In Ethiopia, specifically on Addis Ababa city roads operating, vehicles are mixed with varying static and dynamic traffic characteristics that are very challenging for the traffic analyst to come up with a sole solution to the traffic malady. Under heterogeneous traffic, each vehicle type cannot be compared with other vehicle types since it shows different effects on the road. It could be observed that the majority of the drivers in Addis Ababa road networks do not follow proper lane discipline to use any available space on the road sections. Currently, Ethiopia is using the passenger car unit values from other countries manual, which doesn't represent the local traffic and roadway conditions. This study was initiated to establish the PCU values that will cater the local settings. Hence, this study was focused on estimating the PCU values of multilane highways in Addis Ababa city and determining the influence of traffic volume and width of the road on the values of PCU. The PCUs were estimated for four vehicle types based on the variation of traffic volume and carriageway width. Dynamic PCU method was used to determine PCU values, and a linear regression analysis was performed for model development. The developed model is used to estimate PCU values having the same traffic conditions and roadway conditions found in other countries. The study results indicated that as the traffic volume and carriageway width increases, the passenger car unit value also increases. Also, it was found out that the results of PCU values in this study showed higher values than those provided in Highway Capacity Manual (HCM). Hence, the PCU values obtained are recommended to reflect the existing traffic condition in the locality.},
     year = {2021}
    }
    

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  • TY  - JOUR
    T1  - Determination of Passenger Car Unit for Urban Roads: A Case Study in Addis Ababa
    AU  - Helen Hordofa Tullu
    AU  - Emer Tucay Quezon
    Y1  - 2021/09/06
    PY  - 2021
    N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajcbm.20210502.13
    DO  - 10.11648/j.ajcbm.20210502.13
    T2  - American Journal of Construction and Building Materials
    JF  - American Journal of Construction and Building Materials
    JO  - American Journal of Construction and Building Materials
    SP  - 57
    EP  - 63
    PB  - Science Publishing Group
    SN  - 2640-0057
    UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajcbm.20210502.13
    AB  - In Ethiopia, specifically on Addis Ababa city roads operating, vehicles are mixed with varying static and dynamic traffic characteristics that are very challenging for the traffic analyst to come up with a sole solution to the traffic malady. Under heterogeneous traffic, each vehicle type cannot be compared with other vehicle types since it shows different effects on the road. It could be observed that the majority of the drivers in Addis Ababa road networks do not follow proper lane discipline to use any available space on the road sections. Currently, Ethiopia is using the passenger car unit values from other countries manual, which doesn't represent the local traffic and roadway conditions. This study was initiated to establish the PCU values that will cater the local settings. Hence, this study was focused on estimating the PCU values of multilane highways in Addis Ababa city and determining the influence of traffic volume and width of the road on the values of PCU. The PCUs were estimated for four vehicle types based on the variation of traffic volume and carriageway width. Dynamic PCU method was used to determine PCU values, and a linear regression analysis was performed for model development. The developed model is used to estimate PCU values having the same traffic conditions and roadway conditions found in other countries. The study results indicated that as the traffic volume and carriageway width increases, the passenger car unit value also increases. Also, it was found out that the results of PCU values in this study showed higher values than those provided in Highway Capacity Manual (HCM). Hence, the PCU values obtained are recommended to reflect the existing traffic condition in the locality.
    VL  - 5
    IS  - 2
    ER  - 

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Author Information
  • Road and Transport Engineering, College of Civil and Architecture Engineering Addis Ababa Science and Technology University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

  • Civil & Construction Engineering and Management Streams, Ambo Institute of Technology, Ambo University, Ambo, Ethiopia

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