Transportation Engineering

"Signalized intersections exists on urban arterials in many countries,which have a great impact on the traffic and causes traffic congestion when it is not properly operated.Perumbavoor signalized intersection was selected as the study area , which is operated manually has four phase existing signal which consists of approach 1 is the phase connecting Aluva to Munnar ,approach 2 is connects from Muvattupuzha to Angamaly, approach 3 is from Munnar to Aluva and approach 4 which connects Angamaly to Muvattupuzha .The main objectives of the study was to estimate the queue length and optimize the signal timing based on the measured queue length.Queue length and existing signal timing for 105 cycles for each approaches were measured manually from the selected site.From the collected data , vehicle count for each approaches were extracted using DataFromSky application.Using the turning volume in PCU units ,proposed four regression models for queue length for each approach by considering the queue length as dependent variable and 2w% ,3w% ,LCV% , red, LT ,RT,T as independent variables and find out the average value for queue length as 488 m by substituting average values for independent variables.To minimize delay , performed signal optimization in excel and designed signal timing based on the turning volume.Then by substituting different red time in developed model, proposed the new queue length and obtained the designed queue length as 458m. After performing the trials by redistributing the green time based on the queue length in each approach, the result obtained with only small variations in queue length was observed. So adopted the designed signal timing for traffic volume for minimizing the delay and considered signal timing as optimum for reducing the queue."

"Overtaking is one of the major process in the driving operation. This process contributes to the majority of road accidents across the globe. The human behaviour during overtaking influence the result of the whole overtaking manoeuvre. Overtaking studies are conducted across the world studying the drivers nature, overtaking parameters and other processes during an overtaking operation. In India these studies are conducted but is limited to the studies of National highways and major roads. Traffic on Indian roads is highly mixed in nature with wide variations in the static and dynamic characteristics of vehicles. These vehicles do not follow strict lane discipline and occupy any available lateral position on the road space. This project is an investigational study of the overtaking behaviour on Thodupuzha-Muvattupuzha road of SH08. Overtaking process involves lane-changing manoeuvres, acceleration and deceleration actions and estimation of relative speed of overtaking and overtaken vehicles, and also, estimation of speed and distance of the oncoming vehicle. Different overtaking parameters such as overtaking distance, overtaking time, speed, acceleration and minimum spacing are calculated and their relationships are studied. Study on types of overtaking such as accelerative and flying overtaking on the selected stretch is also conducted in this project. Data on headway and time to collision (TTC) is collected and studied based on the overtaking operation. In undivided roads the vehicles use the opposing lane to overtake the slower vehicles with the presence of oncoming vehicles from opposite direction. The study is specifically on the undivided roads in mixed traffic conditions."

"This study explored the effect of pavement surface condition on the accident rate on urban expressway routes.About 9 road stretches where taken for this project and the model was developed by taking accident rate as dependent variable and parameters such as ,PCR and width where taken as independent variable.From the accident rate estimation model based on the Linear regression analysis, we found that the pavement surface condition has a positive significant effect on the accident rate. The impact of PCR was noted to be more effective than the width of the road stretches."

"The steep increase in the number of motor vehicles on the road is primarily due to the occurrence of traffic problems such as accidents, congestion, and delays, especially in the urban areas of developing countries. In this paper, an attempt has been made to analyze the various traffic problems and to suggest sustainable traffic management measures at Kathrikadavu junction, Ernakulam, India. Direct field surveys were used to collect data on traffic level, land use, and pedestrian movement activities. The collected data showed that poor junction planning, shortage of traffic signals, and lack of proper traffic management are the most significant contributors to traffic congestion. Various remedial measures, based on junction enhancement, alternative service plans, and junction signalization along with sustainable measures are proposed as a feasible solution. The efficiency of the mounted signal can be evaluated using microscopic simulation models, PTV VISSIM and VISTRO. The Vissim software shows how traffic simulation can be used to assess the efficiency and protection of an unsignalized intersection. The models are also able to produce detailed outputs such as queue length, different types of delay in various traffic inputs and time intervals, etc. Also a comparitive analysis on Conventional and Sustainable Transportation planning is done."

"Roadways play an important role in our life. It helps people reach their destination easily. It offers door to door transportation. Increase in population led to an increase in demand of vehicles. With the development of technology, it became easy for common people to afford cars and bikes which led to many problems like traffic congestion, delay etc. Thus it became a necessity to study the nature of roads and traffic. The nature of roads are characterized by level of service. Level of Service (LOS) is a

qualitative measure used to relate the quality of traffic service. LOS is used to analyze highways by categorizing traffic flow and assigning quality levels of traffic based on performance measures like speed and density. The level of service can be derived from a road under different operating characteristics and traffic volumes. The factors affecting level of service (LOS) are speed and travel time, traffic interruptions or restrictions, freedom to travel with desired speed, driver comfort and convenience and operating cost. The main objectives of this study are to assess the LOS on typical urban road links with mixed traffic, to analyze the results and understand the sufficiency or deficiency in LOS and to suggest measures to improve the LOS."

" Flood is a natural phenominon which brings damage to properties, infrastructure, animals, plants and human lives. Issue of flood involves the emergency response of services related to evacuation, relief center and health center facilities. This project highlights the use of QGIS software for flood risk management. For evacuation planning, locating shelters , availability of road network, all these informations and decision making is done using QGIS. The study area selected is Muvattupuzha town. This area is highly vulnerable to floods. There for evacuation of people from flooded area to safe location is necessary. Suitable available shelters are identifeid and digitized in QGIS software. Complete evacuation plan is discussed in this project."