Study of the ways to increase the urban street and road network capacity

Abstract

During the existing situation assessment on the urban road network and intersections design, it is necessary to establish the traffic capacity value of streets and its elements. When forecasting the capacity value it is necessary to turn traffic flow presented by different vehicles to uniformity expressed in the equivalent number of passenger cars by using passenger car equivalent coefficients (PCE). PCE currently used in the Russian Federation are formed on the capacity studies of the street-road network, carried out in the 70s-80s of the last century on rural roads, where the traffic flow was mostly presented by heavy vehicles. Nowadays the major percentage of traffic flow is presented by passenger cars. At the same time, the dynamic performances of trucks and buses have changed significantly. In this regard, the question of clarifying the traffic flow composition and revising the passenger car equivalent coefficients becomes urgent. High level of streets congestion and intersections with a small heavy vehicle percentage in the traffic flow is most often observed in large cities. The studies were carried out on the the multi-lane highway in Moscow in the sections free from the intersections and junctions influence. The purpose of the study was to clarify the traffic flow composition and determine the passenger car equivalent coefficients in modern traffic conditions.