Traffic Engineering: Theory, Worked Examples and Problems

The increasing need to make the best use of the existing highway network has led to the widespread application of traffic engineering techniques in most urban areas of the developed world. In response to this growing importance of highway traffic engineering and management, many highway technician, undergraduate civil engineering and specialized higher degree courses include a study of highway traffic engineering. This book is intended to be of use to students on these courses by presenting a set of 33 worked examples in a wide range of highway traffic problems designed to illustrate the principles of highway traffic flow and the practical traffic design of highway elements. The book should also be of value to professional engineers who are looking for an introduction to highway traffic engineering or seeking to update their knowledge on this subject.

Table of Contents:
Examples 1-33: measurement of highway traffic stream speed, time and space mean speeds; distribution of highway traffic speeds, fitting to a normal distribution; highway journey speeds, moving car observer method; theoretical basis of the moving car observer method; car following theory illustrated by an example; the negative exponential distribution applied to headways on highways; the double exponential distribution applied to headways on congested highways; flow, speed and density relationships for highway flow; flow, speed and density relationships applied to a highway bottleneck; queueing theory applied to highways; priority intersections, gap and lag acceptance; delays at priority intersections illustrated by example; the capacity of oversaturated priority intersections; geometric delay at an at-grade roundabout; relationships between entry and circulating flow at roundabouts; determination of roundabout entry width; design of weaving sections; merging on to high speed roads; design of merging and diverging lanes at grade separated junctions; introduction to signal control; traffic signal cycle times; right turning flows at traffic signals illustrated by an example; variation of delay with cycle time at traffic signals illustrated by an example; delay at traffic signals illustrated by an example; design of a traffic signal controlled intersection; design of a three phase traffic signal controlled intersection; platoon dispersion between signal controlled intersections; combination method of minimizing delays in traffic signal controlled networks; costs and benefits of highway traffic flow; economic assessment of highway improvements; calculation of highway operational costs; simulation of highway headway distributions; simulation of delay at highway priority intersections.