Level of Service Criteria of Roads in Urban India Context

Abstract

Traffic congestion has become a serious problem in metropolitan cities like Guntur. This enormous traffic congestion is due to huge explosion in job opportunities created by these cities. Traffic congestion has now become a very serious problem particularly in metropolitan cities because cities have expanded dynamically without any planning and control. Such rapid development has increased the number of vehicles in Guntur city which is creating a huge increase in traffic congestion thereby increasing the delay time in each midblock. This traffic congestion is causing pollution due to idling of vehicles for a long time. The present study is an attempt to study different parameters such as capacity, level of service, vehicle to capacity ratio, average journey time, average delay in each midblock, peak hour traffic and to provide necessary improvement measures in this midblock. For the present study 6 mid-blocks were selected in Chilakaluripet bypass road area of Guntur city. Traffic volume count was conducted on all these 6 stretches from morning 6 AM to 10 PM. Speed and delay studies were conducted three times during peak and non-peak hour and the average journey time was determined. Average delay of all these mid-blocks were also determined using speed and delay studies. Road inventory survey was done to determine the width of the road, median, footpath. Capacity calculation was done on the basis of spot speed studies. Level of service was found out based on the average speed among each mid-block. The traffic data collected from the field shows that the mid blocks are congested during peak hours. The vehicle to capacity ratio during peak hour was found to be exceeding 1. The level of service of the entire stretch was found to F during the entire survey. The average time required to travel the entire 3.8km stretch during peak hour was found to be 17min and the average travel speed was below 13kmph. Improvement measures should be done in Sony signal junction where maximum delay is occurring.