Development of PCU Value of E-rickshaw on Urban Roads

Abstract

Traffic in countries like India is heterogeneous in nature. Different types of vehicles share the same space of roadway width. These vehicles have different power, weight, and dimensions. To convert heterogeneous traffic into homogeneous traffic for capacity designing, traffic light, and intersection design, a common parameter passenger car equivalency (also called as passenger car unit) is used. Indian Roads Congress codes, IRC: 106:1990 and IRC: 64:1990, deal with the passenger car unit (PCU) of vehicle types on urban and rural roads, respectively. Although a large number of e-rickshaw are plying on urban roads, the PCU value of e-rickshaw is not provided yet. In this study, an attempt has been made to find out the PCU value of e-rickshaw and variation in PCU of e-rickshaw with different traffic volume and composition. Data were collected from different sites having different traffic conditions. Out of various methods, Chandra’s method was used because of the suitability of this method in mixed traffic conditions, and the speed–volume relationship was used to assess variation in PCU of e-rickshaw with traffic volume and traffic composition. According to this study, the suggested PCU value of e-rickshaw is 0.795 and it varies with the different traffic conditions.