Level of Service of Urban and Rural Roads- A Case study in Bhimavaram

Abstract

With rapid growth of population in urban and rural areas, purchase of motorized vehicles is also grown and the demand for proper transportation network which can give good compatibility to the road users has become a major challenge in India. Level of Service (LOS) is one such parameter in terms of compatibility that gives a quality measure for the operational conditions within a traffic stream, i.e., generally in terms of service that is provided by the road to the user. This paper investigates on the existing level of service models for urban and rural roads given by researchers globally. To determine the Level of service of a particular road section, there are few commonly used methods like, Cluster Analysis, Genetic Algorithm, Fuzzy Set Theory and Neural Network etc., which are used, were discussed and reported in this paper. A new approach for finding level of service was introduced, i.e., using volume to capacity ratio (v/c), average speed of the vehicles, percentage speed reduction is also discussed and presented. This paper brings out the collective information on LOS and its findings using analytical models which can estimate/predict compatibility levels of various road users in heterogeneous traffic conditions in urban environment. The objective of this project is to study Los for various selected roads were obtained and discussed. Research work was carried in Bhimavaram (India) town, Ramayanpuram, Jaganadhapuram villages. Both study area-1,3 was observed to have LOS-D grade whereas study area-2,4 was observed to have LOS-E grade. Some of the remedial measures were given in order to increase its Los grades towards better satisfaction of traffic conditions.