JULY 3, 2014

BSCE-V

ASSIGNMENT NO. 3
TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERING


1.) TRANSPORTATION PLANNING AND PROCESS

Transportation planning process It is an on going process which seek to assess the
short and long range transportation problems of a region and to develop, evaluate, select and
implement plans and strategies for solving these problems. This is based on the interaction between
two basic systems, the transportation systems (origins, destinations, volume of people and goods)
and the activity system (land uses, population, social and economic activities) within which
transportation system operates.
Transportation planning is primarily a process of producing information that can be used by
decision makers to better understand the consequences of different courses of action. The tasks that
are part of identifying and assessing these consequences include the following:

Inventory of Facilities
It is important to know what the transportation network consists and the condition and
performance of the facilities. Most state transportation agencies have a very extensive inventory of
the states road system that includes such basic information as the number of lanes, type of
pavement, the last time the pavement was replaced, the capacity of the road, accident record and so
on(inventory should be up to date.

Collect and Maintain Socioeconomic and Land Use Data
A fundamental concept in transportation planning that significantly influences the way such
demand is estimated is DERIVED DEMAND.
Derived demand means that the trip is taken to accomplish some activity at the destination and that
the trip itself is simply a means of reaching this activity.
Transportation planning must therefore relate tripmaking to the types of activities that occur
in a region and also to the characteristics of the tripmaker that will influence the way these trips are
attracted to each type of land use (e.g. the number of trips to schools, shopping centers, residential
units, office complexes, etc). Land use maps are most often the source of such information.
The type of data on tripmaker characteristics that are often collected include; level of income,
number of members in the household, number of autos in the household, number of children, age of
head of household and highest level of education achieved. Each of these socioeconomic
characteristics has been shown to affect how many and how trips are made.

Define Goals and Objectives
It is important early in the planning process to establish the specific goals and objectives that
the transportation plan and recommended projects will b striving to achieve.
Goals are generalized statements that indicate the desired ultimate achievement of a
transportation plan.
Objectives are more specific statements that indicate the means by which goals will be
achieved.
The identification of goals and objectives is critical in that they define the evaluation criteria
that will be used later in the planning process to assess the relative impacts of alternative projects
and strategies. These criteria are often called measures of effectiveness.
Goals and objectives provide an important linkage to the desires and values of the public that
the transportation plan is serving.

Identify System Deficiencies or Opportunities
Transportation planning identifies and prioritizes those elements of the transportation system
where problems exist today or where problems will exist in the future given growth in travel.

Develop and Analyze Alternatives.
Once planning process has identified areas where improvements are needed, transportation
planners define different strategies that could solve the problem.

Evaluate Alternatives
Evaluation brings together all the information gathered on individual alternatives and provides
a framework to compare the relative worth of the alternatives. This evaluation process most relies on
the different measures of effectiveness that relate to the goals and objectives defined at the
beginning of the planning process.

Implement Plan

Monitor System Performance
Transportation planning is a process that continually examines the performance and condition
of the transportation system to identify where improvements can be made.


Transportation planning depends on quality data to provide input into the many different
steps in the planning process. Transportation planners use a variety of methods for collecting the
data needed for input into the planning process.

Road-Use Studies
- Highway planners perform road use studies to determine the relative use of various parts of a
highway system. Information may be obtained by personal interviews with a representative sample of
the registered motor vehicle operators within the highway jurisdiction. Drivers are asked to state the
total mileage driven in one year and the proportion of that mileage that was driven on various
classifications of streets and highways. The planners can use such information to determine the
proportionate use made of the various roads by urban, suburban and rural residents. By correlation
with financial data, planners may then compare the benefits received with the revenues contributed
by various groups of citizens.

Pavement Life Studies
- The primary objective of such studies is to determine the remaining service life for which type of
pavement. Roads are usually retired by resurfacing, reconstructing or abandonment. These studies
also assemble information on costs of construction, maintenance, and depreciation.

Traffic Volume Studies
-This studies provide highway officials with essential information on the number of vehicles using the
highway system. Such information is needed for determining design standards, the systematic
classification of highways and the development of programs for improvement and maintenance.

Travel Surveys
Travel survey identify where and when trips begin and end, the trip purpose and the mode of travel,
as well as certain social and economic characteristics of the tripmaker. Such survey ,may also
determine the types of land use termini, automobile occupancy and for freight , the type of
commodity transported. Travel survey serve as a fundamental source of data for urban transportation
studies.

2.) TYPES OF TRAVEL SURVEYS

a. Household travel surveys these surveys are especially useful for determining the number
and characteristics of person trips or auto-driver trips made by residents within a specified
study area. By such surveys, planners may collect extensive data on socioeconomic
characteristics of households and relate such information to household travel. Such
relationship are extremely valuable for making forecasts of future travel by persons who
reside in the study area.

b. Roadside surveys This method consists of stopping vehicles and asking the drivers for
information on trip origin, destination and purpose. Typically, all the vehicles passing the
roadside survey station are counted, but only a sample a sample of drivers (say 20%). Are
interviewed.
c. Modal surveys- are made by interviewing passengers at terminals or while riding public
carriers. To a lesser extent, telephone interviews and surveys of license plates at terminals
have been used to collect modal travel data.
d. Goods movement surveys- goods surveys may be limited to the collection of origin-
destination information for trucks by truckload type and weight. On other hand,
comprehensive multimodal goods transportation surveys may be desired in which detailed
shipping information is sought for specific commodities, including consignee, shipper, carrier,
commodity type, origin, destination, weight, value, time of origin and destination and shipping
rate.

Parking Surveys. the purpose of a parking survey is to determine the parking habits and
requirements of motorists and the relation of these factors to travel behavior.
A parking survey should be designed so that the information collected will provide data on:
(1) the location, kind and capacity of existing parking facilities (2) the amount of parking
space needed to serve present demands, (3) the approximate location of possible additional
parking facilities and (4) the legal, administrative, financial and economic aspect of parking
facilities.

3.) TRAFFIC STREAM PARAMETER AND MEASUREMENT

CHARACTERISTICS OF TRAFFIC FLOW

Traffic flow can be divided into primary types:

1. Interrupted occurs when flow is periodically interrupted by external means, primarily traffic
control devices such as stop and yield signs and traffic signals. Under interrupted flow conditions,
traffic control devices play a primary role in defining the traffic flow, while vehicle-vhicle interactions
and vehicle-roadway interactions play only a secondary role.
2. Uninterrupted flow- occurs when vehicles traversing a length of roadway are not required to stop
by any cause external to the traffic stream, such as traffic control devices. It is regulated by vehicle-
vehicle interactions on one side and by the interactions between vehicles and the roadway
environment and geometry on other side.


TRAFFIC STREAM PARAMETERS

Traffic stream parameters fall into two broad categories:
1. Macroscopic parameters which characterize the traffic stream as a whole
2. Microscopic parameters which characterize the behavior of individual vehicles in the traffic
stream with respect to each other.