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Journal of Society for Transportation and Traffic Studies (JSTS) Vol.3 No.4 52 A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF EFFECT OF MOTORCYCLE VOLUME ON CAPACITY OF FOUR LANE URBAN ROADS IN INDIA AND THAILAND Sanjeev SINHA Associate Professor Department of Civil Engineering National Institute of Technology Patna Patna – 800 005, India Phone: +91 612 2341613 Fax: + 91 612 270631 Email: [email protected] * Corresponding Author Pichai TANEERANANON Professor Center for Road Safety Research Department of Civil Engineering Prince of Songkla University Hat Yai 90112, Thailand Phone: +6674212499, +6674287141 Fax: +6674446519 Email: [email protected] Satish CHANDRA Professor Department of Civil Engineering Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee Roorkee 247 667 Uttarakhand, India Phone: +91 1332 285468 Email: [email protected] ABSTRACT: Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) of USA provides techniques for evaluation of capacity and quality of service of any facility. Studies have shown that these techniques have limited application for heterogeneous traffic situation prevailing in the developing world. As motorcycles are found in large numbers on the urban roads of developing countries; the present study is an attempt to determine their effect of on the capacity of four lane urban roads. A comparative study was carried out in Thailand and India, where speed-volume relationship was used for capacity estimation. It was found that similar to the finding of a study carried out in India, the capacity of four lane urban roads in Thailand increases with the increase in percentage of motorcycle in the traffic stream. However, though the estimate of capacity was very close to that recommended by the Indonesian highway capacity manual, it was different from the estimated values for similar traffic situation in India. KEYWORDS: Capacity, motorcycle, speed-volume relationship
