Urban traffic system, 2nd ed.

Urban Traffic System constitutes a group of interdependent and interrelated traffic and related components which are intended to form a unified entity to accomplish smooth, orderly and safe movement of vehicles in an urban area. The number of trips being attracted to urban areas is normally very high due to the presence of high density commercial and business land uses. In the local context, these trips to the urban areas were usually performed by private vehicles and thus has increased the number of private vehicles entering into the urban areas on a daily basis. Due to limited road and other transport infrastructure in urban areas, the increasing number of private vehicles has caused continuing increase in the level of traffic congestion, thereby decreasing the speed of the vehicles, increasing the travel and delay time, increasing the air pollution level and increasing the discomfort and inconveniences of the road users. It is very import to understand the effects of the increase in traffic on road and other transport infrastructure. The first edition of this book covers topics on traffic volume, speed, road intersection, road capacity, level of service, parking, traffic control devices, road safety, and traffic management measures including traffic calming. This second edition of the book on “Urban Traffic System” has made significant changes in its overall contents. As the main scope of this book focuses on road traffic, a new chapter on “Road Network and Geometrics” narrating functions of road, classification of roads, road cross-sectional elements and road circulation system is added in this edition of the book. To facilitate the understanding on various topics that are being covered in this edition of the book by the readers, exercises in the form of quiz and other questions are added at the end of each chapter including the newly introduced chapter on road network and geometrics. This will help the readers especially students in the higher learning institutions to search for answers to these questions from this book which further strengthens the understanding of the various topics in this book. In the “speed studies” chapter, few images depicting the measurement of spot speed are improved. Additionally, a new section on how to convert ungrouped data into grouped data for the purpose of calculating speed characteristics is added in this chapter. In the “parking studies” chapter, new figures on parking layout and internal traffic circulation in the parking layout are added to understand the circulation of traffic in an off-street parking layout. A new section on “road capacity of different roads and traffic lane conditions” providing data on road capacity for different types of roads and road geometrics is added in road capacity and level of service chapter. The analytical formula to calculate spacing and headway of vehicles is added together with the changes in the explanation of relationship between speed and density, volume and speed and volume and density and explanation on different level of service. In the “road intersection” chapter, some of the figures illustrating the layout of the intersections were improved. Traffic management measures and traffic calming chapter in the first edition of this book is split into two separate chapter in this edition, one describing on traffic management measures and another on traffic calming with improvement on traffic calming chapter. The increasing number of vehicles in a city or a town has significantly attributed to frequent changes in the characteristics of traffic components such as speed, volume, capacity, road design and safety. A study on these imminent changes would eventually provide explanations on the impediment in traffic movement, which, in turn, helps to ameliorate safety of the road users. Better understanding of the traffic components and characteristics would play an important role in designing effective and efficient road system for smooth, orderly and safe traffic movement. It will also help to gain better and further insights on traffic maneuverability by traffic and transport professionals. Additionally, the present state of literature on traffic components and characteristics is very much focused on overseas case studies and thus necessitates the need for undertaking a study on this subject in the local context. The findings on traffic components based on case studies in the local context would help students in higher learning institutions and other related communities to better comprehend traffic and transportation components. Automatic/electronic and other related equipments were used to measure traffic and transport components such as traffic volume, speed, road intersection and capacity, level of service, parking traffic control devices, road safety, and traffic management measures. To exemplify, radar gun was used to measure speed, traffic volume counters to measure traffic volume of mixed traffic including at road intersections, and observational field survey to evaluate level of service, traffic control devices, traffic management and traffic calming measures. Analysis on each of the traffic and transport component was performed by using appropriate analytical techniques. The findings from the analysis on each of these traffic components are highlighted and discussed in this book. This book is expected to further strengthen the literature on each of the selected traffic components, especially in the local context. It is also expected to benefits students, especially in higher learning institutions and professionals in the field of urban traffic system, traffic planning and engineering, to understand the methodology involved to collect and analyse traffic data to arrive at important decisions on traffic operations to achieve smooth, orderly and safe traffic movements