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Non-motorized vehicles (i.e. rickshaws) and small size motorized vehicles (i.e. auto-rickshaws) are popular para-transit modes that provided
door-to-door service in congested parts of Dhaka metropolitan area. Improper design of signal timing at signalized intersections is one of the reasons
of traffic congestion in Dhaka metropolitan area. For capacity analysis, to convert the mixed traffic flow into basic traffic flow passenger car equiva-
lents plays an important role. In Bangladesh for signal design purposes passenger car equivalents value of rickshaws and auto-rickshaw are as-
sumed by the traffic engineers as there is no widely acceptable method to estimate PCE values of rickshaws and auto-rickshaws, which is likely to
result in unnecessarily long queues and additional delays or, in other words, inefficient intersection control. The objective of this study was to analyze
the effects of rickshaws and auto-rickshaws on the capacity of signalized intersections. This study also aimed at developing an estimation method of
passenger car equivalent of rickshaws and auto rickshaws at signalized intersections by a macroscopic approach. Data of four intersections of Dhaka
metropolitan were used for development of PCE values. Passenger car equivalent values of rickshaws and auto-rickshaws are recommended for
capacity analysis of urban signalized intersections with a mixed traffic flow. The results indicated that the estimated PCE value of rickshaws and auto
rickshaws of this study are different from the assumed PCE values that are presently used by traffic engineers of Bangladesh.
Key Words: Passenger car equivalents (PCE), Rickshaws, Auto-rickshaws, Signalized intersections, Capacity analysis
tions. The operating characteristics considered to define gestion in Dhaka metropolitan area. The objective of this
what LOS are: journey speeds of cars and motorized two- study was to analyze the effects of rickshaws and auto-
wheelers; concentration; and road occupancy. Parikesit8 rickshaws on the capacity of signalized intersections. This
conducted a study in Yogyakarta, Indonesia on the char- study also aimed at developing an estimation method of
acteristics of non-motorized public transport service and a passenger car equivalent of rickshaws and auto rick-
concluded that non-motorized vehicles operation finds it shaws at signalized intersections by a macroscopic ap-
difficult to cope with a “modern” traffic management proach.
scheme developed to suit the needs of motorized vehicle.
Steuart and Shin9 made a comprehensive study on the ef-
fect of small cars on the capacity of signalized urban in-
2. DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE
tersections and concluded that the capacity of a signalized
intersection is increased by up to 15% for a stream of
small cars over a stream of full-sized cars. All field data were collected from the signalized in-
An overall review of the studies suggested that past tersections located in the Dhaka metropolitan area in
efforts on determining the effects of non-motorized and Bangladesh. Four signalized intersections were selected
small size motorized vehicles has concentrated on the to- for the study. The following criteria were used in the se-
tal transport system, importance of these modes and some lection of study sites: minimum proportion of turning ve-
limited cases on mixed traffic performance. Very few hicles, no parking allowed, level terrain, and road surface
studies considered the capacity analysis of mixed traffic in good conditions, high traffic volume and insignificant
flow. Furthermore, no study was found which considered disturbance from bus stops. Figure 1 represents the geo-
the effects of rickshaws and auto-rickshaws on the capac- metric configuration of study sites. Data of non-motor-
ity of intersections and PCE estimation procedure of these ized vehicles (rickshaws) and small size motorized
modes. Presently there is no widely acceptable guide line vehicles (auto-rickshaws) were collected from intersec-
for traffic engineers of Bangladesh to estimate the PCE tions 1, 2 and intersections 3, 4 respectively.
values of rickshaw and auto-rickshaws for capacity analy- Data collection was performed by a two person
sis of signalized intersections, furthermore, assumed PCE team. Two types of data were collected for intersections
values of rickshaws and auto-rickshaws result in long 1 and 2: total number of passenger cars and rickshaws in
queues in some intersections which leads to traffic con- the specified queue length, and time required to discharge
Approach
Approach width 10 m
Site 1 width 13 m Site 2
Lane width
3m
Lane width
3m
Site 3 Site 4
these queued vehicles. A total number of queued vehicles sixteen hours data were collected for this study. To de-
within this queue length were counted during the red in- termine the basic flow the queue which contained only
terval. Time required to discharge these queued vehicles passenger cars was recorded. To avoid the impact of other
was recorded by stop watch. For intersections 3 and 4, types of vehicles on passenger car equivalents, data were
total number of passenger cars and auto-rickshaws were recorded for only those queues which contained passen-
counted which were discharged during a specified green ger cars and rickshaws or passenger cars and auto-rick-
period. Data were collected for two different green pe- shaws.
riods of 20 sec and 25 sec intervals because during the
data collection phase it was observed that average dis-
charged time to clear all the queued vehicles was about
3. EFFECTS OF RICKSHAWS AND
23 sec. For intersections 1 and 2 data were collected for
queue length of 50 meters and 40 meters because during
AUTO-RICKSHAWS
data collection phase it was observed that the average
length of queued vehicle was about 46m. All data were Figure 2 and Figure 3 represent the effect of rick-
collected during morning peak period. In all, more than shaws and auto-rickshaws on the discharge rate of mixed
Q 50 m Q 40 m
5300
5200
R2 = 0.75
Discharge rate (veh/hr)
5100
5000
R2 = 0.65
4900
4800
4700
0 20 40 60 80 90
Proportion of non-motorized vehicles (%)
20 sec 25 sec
2200
2150
R2 = 0.91
2100
Discharge rate (veh/hr)
2050 R2 = 0.75
2000
1950
1900
1850
1800
1750
1700
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
Proportion of small size motorized vehicles (%)
flow at signalized urban intersections. the increased headways caused by a large truck. Molina’s
As shown in Figure 2 the discharge rate of mixed method is based on the headway method and estimate
flow of passenger cars and rickshaws increases as the pro- PCE using equation (2).
portion of rickshaws increases and after certain propor-
tion of rickshaws (about 50%) the discharge rate gradually Dh
PCEj = 1 + .................................................. (2)
decreases as the proportion of rickshaws, increases. This Hb
seems to us that a lower proportion of rickshaws the pas- Where: PCEj = passenger car equivalents of large
senger car are dominant and the discharge rate is higher vehicle type j;
due to their higher speed and at a higher proportion of Dh = increased headway of the queue
rickshaw discharge rate is slow due to the lower speed caused by vehicle type j (sec);
of rickshaws which required more time to cross the stop Hb = saturation flow headway of passenger
line. This tendency is similar for both the 50 meter and car (sec).
40 meter queue lengths and the discharge rate of the 50 Zhao 13 developed a delay-based passenger car
meter queue lengths is more than that of the 40 meter equivalent method for heavy vehicles at signalized inter-
queue length as more vehicles are involved in a bigger sections using headway data according to the equation (3).
queue length. The pattern of relationship between dis-
charge rate and proportion of auto-rickshaws is somewhat Ddi
D – PCEi = 1 + ......................................... (3)
different from that of rickshaws. As shown in Figure 3, do
the discharge rates of mixed flow of passenger cars and Where: D-PCEi =delay-based PCE for vehicle type i;
auto-rickshaws at urban signalized intersections in- Ddi = additional delay caused by vehicle
creased with the increase of proportion of auto-rickshaws. type i (sec);
This seems to occur due to the size of auto-rickshaws be- do = average delay of passenger car queue
ing smaller and almost half that of a passenger car and (sec).
those headway values are smaller than passenger cars
which results in an increase in discharge rate. Rahman et al.14 developed a new method for esti-
mating passenger car equivalents for large vehicles at sig-
nalized intersections based on the increased delay caused
by the large vehicle. This method includes the effects of
4. PCE ESTIMATION METHODS AT
a large vehicle’s position in the queue to estimate the PCE
INTERSECTIONS value. The authors estimate PCE using equation (4).
PCE LVj = 1 + (dLGj / Do) ..................................... (4)
The term passenger car equivalent (PCE) was first
introduced in 1965 Highway Capacity Manual (HCM)10. Where: PCE LVj = passenger car equivalents for a
The concept of estimating passenger car equivalent is to large vehicle at j-th queue posi-
estimate the number of passenger cars displaced by each tion;
vehicle other than a passenger car in mixed traffic flow. dLGj = increased delay due to the large ve-
Considerable research effort has been directed toward the hicle at j-th queue position;
estimation of PCE value at signalized intersections by Do = base delay of a passenger car when all
various researchers. the queued vehicles are passenger car.
Greenshields et al.11 estimated PCE value by a
headway ratio method, which is also known as the basic An overall review of the studies suggested that past
method and currently the most commonly used method. efforts on determining the PCE value concentrated mainly
In this method, PCE of any vehicle class (i) is estimated on the large vehicle i.e. motorized vehicles. No study con-
by the ratio of average headway value of vehicle class sidered PCE estimation method for non-motorized ve-
(i) to the average headway of a passenger car (c) accord- hicles and small size motorized vehicles at signalized
ing to the equation (1). urban intersections. The methods mentioned above can-
not be directly used to estimate PCE of non-motorized
PCEi = Hi / Hc .................................................... (1)
and small size motorized vehicles, as flow characteris-
Molina12 developed a method to estimate the PCE tics of these types of vehicle is completely different and
value of large trucks at signalized intersections based on complex in nature. Furthermore, most of the intersections
rickshaws and passenger cars form a scattered queue, so Where: PCE = passenger car equivalent of rick-
it is difficult to estimate the individual headway of ve- shaws or auto-rickshaws;
hicles. p = proportion of rickshaws or auto-
rickshaws in mixed traffic flow;
qB, qM = flow rate for basic and mixed traf-
fic streams respectively.
5. PCE OF AUTO-RICKSHAWS AND
RICKSHAWS 1
0.9
0.8
The passenger car equivalent (PCE) of a rickshaw
PCE values
0.7
or auto-rickshaw represents the number of passenger cars
0.6
(basic vehicles) displaced by each rickshaw or auto-rick- 0.5
shaw in the mixed traffic stream under specific conditions 0.4
of flow. Consider the relationship between some measure 0.3
y = 0.0093x + 0.2388
2
R = 0.8638
of impedance along a length of roadway and the flow rate 0.2
along the same roadway for two different traffic streams. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
There are several variables that may be used as a measure Proportion of auto-rickshaws (%)
of impedance. For this study, in the case of rickshaws fixed Fig. 5 Relationship between PCE and proportion of
queue length and auto-rickshaws the fixed green time pe- auto-rickshaws ( Site 3, 20 sec green time period)
riod is considered as a measure of impedance to relate two
0.9
traffic streams. The flow-impedance relationship is shown
0.8
in Figure 4, in which the basic curve represents a stream
0.7
PCE values
0.7
qM qB
Flow rate 0.6
0.5
Fig.4 Flow-impedance relationship15
0.4
y = 0.0085x + 0.3028
0.3 2
R = 0.8458
As shown in Figure 4, as the flow rate q increases,
0.2
the impedance increases; the increase in impedance is at 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
a greater rate for the mixed flow. For any given imped- Proportion of auto-rickshaws (%)
ance it is possible to calculate the corresponding flow rate
Fig. 7 Relationship between PCE and proportion of
q B and qM. These flow rates for the basic and mixed
auto-rickshaws ( Site 4, 20 sec green time period)
streams will produce identical measures of level of ser-
vice and can then be equated so that qB = (1-p) qM + p
qM (PCE). Solving for PCE, the result is
PCE = (1/p) [(qB / qM ) -1] + 1 .......................... (5)
0.9
F value and Fcritical value at a given confidence level. If
0.8
F > Fcritical the null hypothesis will be rejected. Since the
0.7
PCE values
1.1
PCE and predict PCE of auto-rickshaws and rickshaws PCE of auto-rickshaw PCE of rickshaw
1
from regression equations are shown in Figure 9 and Fig-
0.3
lower proportion of auto-rickshaws the discharge rate var- 0 20 40 60 80 100 120
ies considerably depending on the position of auto-rick- Proportion of rickshaws/auto-rickshaws (%)
2
R = 0.78
0.6 rickshaws. However, other relationships might be consid-
0.5 ered in future to account for possible non-linear relations.
0.4 Figure 11 represents the PCE value computed from
0.3 the prediction model for various proportions of rickshaws
0.2 and auto-rickshaws. For capacity analysis or signal de-
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
Proportion of auto-rickshaws (%) sign for mixed traffic flow, from field observations we
have to determine the proportion of rickshaws or auto-
Fig. 9 Comparison of observed PCE and predicted rickshaws in mixed flow. Then PCE value of Figure 11
PCE value of auto-rickshaws will be used to convert the mixed flow into basic flow in
1.05
the analysis. As shown in Figure 11, at lower proportion
1
Observed PCE Predicted PCE of rickshaws in the mixed flow affects the flow more ad-
0.95
versely than auto-rickshaws and at higher proportion of
0.9 vehicles the effect is similar. The suggested PCE value
PCE value
2
R = 0.89
0.85 of rickshaws and auto-rickshaws varies from 0.75 to 1
0.8 and 0.35 to 1 respectively depending on the proportion
0.75 of vehicles in mixed traffic flow. This result is applicable
0.7 for capacity analysis of any intersection with a mixed
0.65
flow of passenger cars and rickshaws or auto-rickshaws.
0.6
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 In DITS17 report they assumed and used a constant PCE
Proportion of rickshaws (%) value of rickshaws and auto-rickshaws 1 and 0.75 respec-
Fig. 10 Comparison of observed PCE and predicted tively. No adequate documentation is provided for this
PCE value of rickshaws assumption. The results show evidence that the estimated
PCE value of rickshaws and auto rickshaws of this study
As shown in Figure 10 the regression model can varied significantly at lower proportions of vehicles from
predict the PCE value of rickshaws authentically at all the assumed PCE values that are presently used by the
proportions of auto-rickshaws. There is a linear relation- traffic engineers of Bangladesh. In this paper we consid-
ship between PCE value and proportion of rickshaws. ered PCE values of rickshaws and auto-rickshaws sepa-
PCE value increases as the proportion of rickshaws in- rately. It is possible to estimate the PCE a value of a
creases. Maximum effect due to rickshaws occurrs at sig- mixture of rickshaws and auto-rickshaws by similar ap-
nalized intersections when their proportion is high. This proach, but an extensive data source is required for this
seems to us to occurre because at a higher proportion of purpose.
rickshaws, discharg time increases due to slow moving
REFERENCES
1. Hossain, A. B. Effect of Non-motorized Transport on the Performance
of Road Traffic in Metropolitan Dhaka. M.Sc. Dissertation, CE, BUET.
(1996).
2. Gallagher, R. The Rickshaws of Bangladesh. University press limited.
(1992).