CE 310 : Lecture 3

ROAD USER AND THE VEHICLE

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Introduction
The success of transportation engineering depends upon the co-ordination between the two primary elements, namely the vehicles and the road users. Their characteristics affect the performance of the transportation system and the transportation engineer should have fairly good understanding about them.

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Road User
The traffic engineer has to design and operate the traffic facilities which will be used by pedestrians, cyclist and motorists.

A knowledge of how this behaviour is influenced by various external conditions will be useful in designing the facility.

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Diversity (Behaviors) Driver and other roads have widely varying characteristics. Traffic controls could be easily designed if all drivers reacted to them in exactly the same way. The traffic engineer must deal with elderly drivers as well as 18-year-olds aggressive drivers and timid drivers. And drivers subject to myriad distractions both inside and outside their vehicles.

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Human behaviour can be studies under the following groups (i) Physiological (ii) Psychological

Physiological (i) Vision Visual acuity, Peripheral vision, Colour vision, Glare Recovery, Depth/Distance Judgment. (ii) Hearing
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Vision :

Zone of acute vision or visual acuity is formed by a cone whose angle is 3 about the centre of the retina - Objects with in this cone - user can read. - 10-12 color & shape can be Identified This is important when locating traffic signs & signals

Peripheral vision deals with the total visual field for the 2 eyes with in this field the eyes are able to see object, but W\O clear details & color The angle of Peripheral Vision is about 160 in horizontal & 115 in vertical
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The angle of peripheral vision falls with speed. It has values of 110 degrees at 30 kmph and 40 degrees at 100 kmph. This emphasizes the need for travel at safe speeds.
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Vision. Color Vision : It is important for different traffic signal light & traffic signs Glare Recovery:The ability of the drivers eyes to adapt to glare due to head light or variation in lighting conditions is an important factor. The glare recovery time varies from 3-6 sec. Depth/Distance Judgment : The ability to judge the depth & dist of an objects & its speed, pedestrian crossing Hearing To alert the Road user, Defective hearing is not a very serious problem.
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 Psychological PIEV Or Perception Reaction Time (i) Perception (ii) Intellection (iii) Emotion (iv)Volition

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PIEV

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Reaction Time

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 Space occupied by pedestrians : for design of sub way, foot over bridges and other facilities, the space required by a pedestrian id generally taken as an ellipse with major axis of 0.6 m and minor axis of 0.45m . The spacing between pedestrians while walking is generally assumed to be 2.5 m, which roughly corresponds to a time headway of 2 sec.
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Vehicle Characteristics

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The various vehicle characteristics affecting the road design may be classified as static and dynamic characteristics. Static characteristics : Vehicle dimensions, Weight and maximum turning angle. Dynamic characteristics : Speed, acceleration and deceleration, and braking characteristics. The vehicle speed affects :
Sight distance Super elevation length of transition curve Width of pavement Design of gradient Capacity of road Design and control measures in intersection

Thus design speed controls most of the geometric features of PV_L2_2012 highways.