Speed Characteristics of Mixed Traffic Flow on Urban Arterials

Speed and traffic volume data are collected on different sections of four lane and six lane roads in three metropolitan cities in India. Speed data are analyzed to fit the statistical distribution to individual vehicle speed data and all vehicles speed data. It is noted that speed data of individual vehicle generally follows a normal distribution but speed data of all vehicle combined at a section of urban road may or may not follow the normal distribution depending upon the composition of traffic stream. A new term Speed Spread Ratio (SSR) is introduced in this paper which is the ratio of difference in 85th and 50th percentile speed to the difference in 50th and 15th percentile speed. If SSR is unity then speed data are truly normally distributed. It is noted that on six lane urban roads, speed data follow a normal distribution only when SSR is in the range of 0.86 – 1.11. The range of SSR is validated on four lane roads also.

Effect of Aggregate Gradation on Moisture Susceptibility and Creep in HMA

The present study explains the effect of aggregate gradation on moisture damage in bituminous mixes. Three types of aggregate gradation and two types of binder; VG-30 and Polymer modified bitumen (PMB-40) are used. Moisture susceptibility tests like retained stability and tensile strength ratio (TSR) and static creep test are conducted on Marshall specimens. The creep test was also conducted for conditioned and unconditioned specimens to observe the effect of moisture on creep behaviour. The results indicate that Marshall stability value is higher in PMB-40 mix than VG-30 mixes. Moisture susceptibility of PMB-40 mixes is low when compared with mix using VG-30. The reduction in retained stability, and indirect tensile strength and increase in creep are evaluated for finer, coarser and normal gradation of aggregate to observe the effect of gradation on moisture susceptibility of mixes. The retained stability is least affected when compared with other moisture susceptibility parameters