We know that there are many types of traffic road capacity like design, actual and economic road capacity, every one have a maximum traffic volume that we can calculate the level of service (LOS) by it , and this is different from place to another, so My question is what is the average environmental road capacity in urban area (vehicle per hour per lane) that help me to calculate "Environmental Level Of Service in my Study area ?
I will use this in my PhD study, so place if you have any papers share it please,,,
thanks,
Ahmed.
I think there is not a simple answer for this, since there are many different factors playing a role in urban areas, compared to highways.
The basic capacity of a road would be the same as for a highway I suppose, adjusted for the lower speed. However, the many intersections, buildings, etc. will heavily influence the capacity of each road, which makes me wonder whether it would make any sense to work with an average road capacity for an urban area.
Dear Dennis van Soest,
firstly, Thank you for your interest, But Did you mean that road capacity applies only to highways without urban areas?
I have a JICA study of Cairo, Egypt, with a virtual capacity for urban roads. I also read in a book that there is the term "environmental capacity of the road" which is the volume of traffic that can pass on the road without damaging the environment. In some of the papers I found in Google, I came up with the concept and factors influencing the determination of environmental capacity, but I did not get a clear indication of how much traffic there was.
Well, every road has some capacity, but I think most capacity information that is available applies to highways. Highways are the least complex environments and therefore relatively easy to assess.
I unfortunately don't know what attempts there have been regarding determination of road capacity in urban areas.
I only wanted to say that the capacity in urban areas might be a very complex issue to determine, and therefore you should consider what you are aiming for. If you would find any relevant capacity information, you have to think whether applying this makes any sense in your urban area and how the Level of Service based on this is going to be of use.
Dear Ahmed Younes, this your question is enlightening to me, i am just learning about about the concept of environmental capacity from you. however, from the definition you gave earlier that the term "environmental capacity of the road" means the volume of traffic that can pass on the road without damaging the environment. i want to believe what you intend to study is the environmental capacity of urban roads not urban areas.
firstly, i think you need to specifically determine the nature of urban road in your area as the factors influencing free flow on them might be very different.
secondly, those factors must be itemized and compared to arrive at a representative or mean factors.
thirdly those factors must be able to be quantified in order to arrive a measurement scale or standard
fourthly, you must determine and conceptualize the meaning of environmental damage in order to ascertain when a damage has occured. e.g. may be you want to use volume of co2 gas released during congestion at an urban road segment or damage to roads in urbn areas such pavement breakup, pill off e.t.c.
then you can now operationalize your finding by developing model be it linear or quadratic to compound or structure your data in order to have a desired results. e.g use of multiple regression analysis. or better still consult the mathematicians and statisticians
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