Study of Fundamental Relationships of Traffic Flow for Selected Locations in Erbil City

Abstract

Traffic flow characteristics are of the key factors in the process of planning and management of highway facilities. In the absence of any such information in a systematic form for Erbil city, this study has been conducted as attempt to obtain the needed data on flow, speed and density and to find the relationships among these three parameters. Travel time, travel speed and delay due to traffic interaction data are also needed to evaluate the existing levels of service which is necessary for transportation planning and economic analysis, to be done in this field. This study presents a general picture of traffic flow in terms of magnitude, daily and hourly variations with directional distribution for several road sections selected in Erbil City; 30-M Ring Road (Sawaf Mosque), 30-M Ring Road (Tairawa), Kirkuk Road, Gullan Road, 100- M Ring Road and Kasnazan Road. Data collection carried out by video camera is used for speed and volume measurements during which 720 observations were collected using video camera. To develop the relationships between each pair of flow type variables, namely speed, flow and density software was applied. The range of flow was between 900 and 5600 pc/hr and space mean speed was between 9 and 89km/hr for video camera, for all locations at study site.