Determination of Area Occupancy of the Vehicles and its Effectiveness in Heterogeneous Traffic Conditions

Traffic management is becoming a major concern as the number of vehicles on the road increases. Different types of traffic studies are conducted for different traffic management, especially in developing countries like India. To address traffic heterogeneity, only the vehicular composition is not sufficient. In this study, it has tried to include other characteristics like area occupancy for the traffic analysis. The area occupancy of vehicles was obtained, and the relationship between area occupancy and vehicular composition was investigated for various types of vehicles in Silchar. Video graphic traffic data were collected for 30 minutes, and a detection zone length of 30 meters was considered. Three locations in Silchar were considered in this study. The relationship between several characteristics of area occupancy was determined using SPSS statistical software. Relation between area occupancy and vehicular composition was found for each type of vehicle considered. It was observed that faster vehicles have a weaker relationship with area occupancy than slower vehicles. Initially, it was assumed that area occupancy depends only on vehicular composition, and the R 2 was found to be 0.79. Finally, it was found that area occupancy depends on the vehicular composition, space mean speed and projected area and the corresponding R 2 was found to be 0.88. The values may differ for different roads in the same city.