Passenger car unit of vehicles on undivided intercity roads in India

Abstract

The majority of the roads in India are of single-lane or two-lane width. Due to budget constrains sometimes these roads are constructed with one and a half lane width (5.5 m) and is called intermediate-lane road with traffic moving on both directions. To simplify the analysis of mixed traffic on such roads, different types of vehicles are converted into equivalent number of passenger cars by using Passenger Car Unit (PCU). In the present study, an attempt is made to study the effect of the carriageway width on PCU of different vehicle categories. Data are collected at ten sections of intercity roads in different states in India. The results show that PCU value for a vehicle type varies with traffic volume and composition on the road and the carriageway width of the road being used. For example the average PCU for a big car varies from 1.46 to 1.59 on two-lane roads, 1.23 to 1.55 on intermediate roads and 1.58 on single-lane roads. All these results are discussed in this paper.