Evaluation of Capacity and Level of Service for Heterogeneous Traffic of Urban Multi-Lane Highways

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the capacity and level of service of urban multi-lane highway where the traffic composition is not uniform. Capacity is the greatest sustainable hourly flow rate, and the level of service is a performance measure used for assessing the quality of road service. In this study the last methodology of HCM2016 was used. Data collection was done on four different segments chosen to be suitable with the highway capacity manual conditions. Traffic volumes have been collected using two different techniques; moving car method and the stationary method. All the required geometric parameters have also been measured. The peak hour factor has been found for all the segments. The spot speed was used to check the speed limit (mounted speed) and to find free flow speed. At the end, the level of service and capacity for the segments were found. The level of services of most of the segments is between C and D. The base capacity of the segments is between 1850 to 1900 pc/h/ln.