Estimating Capacity and Motorcycle Equivalent Units on Urban Roads in Hanoi, Vietnam

Abstract

This paper presents an investigation of the accurate methodology of motorcycle equivalent units (MEUs) in mixed traffic flow by considering the characteristics of moving vehicles, such as velocity and effective space. In addition, the effective space of each kind of vehicle is computed with consideration of the influences of velocity, physical size of the subject vehicle, and the surrounding motorcycles in the proposed methodology. The field data were collected in Hanoi, Vietnam in the case study. The results indicated that the MEU values of cars, buses, minibuses, and bicycles are 3.4, 10.5, 8.3 and 1.4, respectively. On the other hand, the collection of the field data of vehicle flow and speed passing through road segments was conducted in three groups of divided roads with raised medians. The fundamental diagrams of vehicle speed-flow-density relationships, ranging from stable traffic flow to unstable conditions, were plotted in this paper. The values of capacity, maximum motorcycle flow, critical mean stream speed, and critical density of traffic flow were computed. Results indicated that the capacity values of urban roads with two, three, and four lanes per direction are 13,358, 21,725 and 24,335 (motorcycles per hour) respectively. The capacity, therefore, increases with the number of lanes of urban roads.