25/02/2025

DEPARTMENT of CIVIL
ENGINEERING

INS 302E HIGHWAY ENGINEERING

Road User Characteristics

Oguz Tengilimoglu, PhD

[email protected]
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Agenda by Weeks
WEEK DATE AGENDA
Introduction to Highway Engineering (2 hr)
1 18/02/2025
Basic Definitions (2 hr)
Road User Characteristics (2 hr)
2 25/02/2025
Vehicle Dynamics (2 hr)
Fundamental Parameters of Traffic Flow (2 hr)
3 04/03/2025 Roadway Classification and Geometric Standards (1 hr)
Practice Session: Vehicle Dynamics (1 hr)
Highway Design: Topographic Maps and Route Survey (2 hr)
4 11/03/2025 Project: Introduction and Layout Map Allocation (1 hr)
Highway Design: Horizontal Curves and Superelevation (1 hr)
Highway Design: Horizontal Curves and Superelevation (2 hr)
5 18/03/2025 Highway Design: Transition Curves (1 hr)
Project: Plan Drawing (1 hr)
Highway Design: Profile and Vertical Curves (2 hr)
6 25/03/2025
Practice Session: Horizontal Curves and Superelevation (2 hr)
7 01/04/2025 MID-SEMESTER BREAK (31 March – 4 April)
Highway Design: Profile and Vertical Curves (2 hr)
8 08/04/2025 Practice Session: Profile and Vertical Curves (1 hr)
Project: Profile Drawing (1 hr)
MIDTERM EXAM -1
9 15/04/2025 Cross Sections and Elements (1 hr)
Cross-section Drawing, Classification of Soils, Heave and Settlement (1 hr)
Earthworks: Cross Section Area Calculations (2 hr)
10 22/04/2025 Project: Earthworks (1hr)
Practice Session: Cross Section Area Calculation (1hr)
Earthworks: Cut-Fill Volumes (2 hr)
11 29/04/2025
Earthworks: Volumes Tables, Mass Diagram (2 hr)
Earthworks: Cost Equations and Earth Distribution (2hr)
12 06/05/2025
Practice Session: Cut-Fill Volume Calculation, Mass Diagram (2 hr)
Earthworks: First and Second Order Balancing and Cost Accounts (3hr)
13 13/05/2025
Earthworks: Bruckner Method (1hr)
MIDTERM EXAM -2
14 20/05/2025
Practice Session: Balancing Applications and Cost Accounts (2 hr) 2
15 27/05/2025 Make-up Exam

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Traffic System Components

• Road users (drivers, pedestrians, bicyclists,

motorcyclist, passengers, electric scooterist, etc.)
• Vehicles (cars, trucks, buses, heavy vehicles, etc.)
• Roadways (streets, highways, etc.)
• Traffic control devices (Traffic signs, traffic lights,
markings, etc.)
• The general environment (weather, lighting,
enforcement policies, etc.)

Characteristics of Highway Users

Road Users
• Physiological  Measurable and usually quantifiable
• Psychological  Much more difficult to measure and quantify

• Psychological:
Desired speeds
Desired safety distances

• Physiological:
Visual factors
Perception-Reaction time
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Diversity (Behaviours)
• Drivers and other road users have widely varying characteristics.
• Traffic controls could be easily designed if all drivers reacted to them in
exactly the same way.
• Safety could be more easily achieved if all vehicles had uniform dimensions,
weights, and operating characteristics.
The transport engineer must deal with elderly drivers as well as 18-year-
olds, aggressive drivers and timid drivers, and drivers subject to myriad
distractions both inside and outside their vehicles.

Diversity (Behaviours)
• Most human characteristics follow the normal
distribution
A normal distribution defines the proportions of the
population expected to fall into these ranges. Because
of variation, it is not practical to design a system for
“average” characteristics. If a signal is timed, for
example, to accommodate the average speed of
crossing pedestrians, about half of all pedestrians
would walk at a slower rate and be exposed to
unacceptable risks.
• Thus, most standards are geared to the “85th
percentile” (or “15th percentile”)

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Diversity (Vehicles)
• Highways must be designed to accommodate motorcycles, the full range of automobiles,
and a wide range of commercial vehicles, including double and triple-back tractor-trailer
combinations.
• Thus, lane widths, for example, must accommodate the largest vehicles expected to use the
facility.

Uniformity for Diversity

• Design of roadway systems and traffic controls is in the core of their professional practice.
• Roadways of a similar type and function should have a familiar “look” to drivers; traffic
control devices should be as uniform as possible. Traffic engineers strive to provide
information to drivers in uniform ways.

Characteristics of Drivers

• Visual Acuity Factors The most important characteristic

of drivers is their ability to see!
• Reaction Process
• Hearing • Field of Vision
• Physical Strength
• Personality and Psychology

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Field of Vision
Visual Angle: The angle on which a person can see clearly when holding the head high and looking
forward. When the head and the eyes are remained constant, visual angle is 5º on each side of the
vertical plane, making a total of 10º. There’s also a horizontal plane and together they form a visual
cone. Clear visual angle can scan each side with 2,5º.

Horizontal Visual Angle Vertical Visual Angle

Field of Vision
Visibility Distance : The distance, which a person is able to see clearly
on forward direction

Speed (km/h) 90 100 110 120

Visual angle (derece) 25 20 16 12

Visibility distance (m) 500 600 700 750 10

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Visual Deficits
Some of the more common problems involve cataracts, glaucoma, peripheral vision deficits,
ocular muscle imbalance, depth perception deficits, and colour blindness.

Colour blindness: Prevents recognizing red and green on traffic signals is a serious problem
and those people are legally forbidden from driving.
250

Dazzle: Short term visual ability loss under

200.16
200 183.48

sudden and intense light

166.80
150.12
150

Length (m)
133.44
116.76

- entering a dark environment from light 6 sec.

100.08 100.08
91.74
100 83.40 83.40
75.06
66.72

- entering a light environment from dark 3 sec. 50 41.70

50.04
58.38

From ligth to Dark

From dark to ligth

0
40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130

Sped (km/h)

Driving Length for different speed under dazzle

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Characteristics of Highway Users

Reading Time Allowance to Traffic Messages

Dudek (1990) Formula;

"Research...has indicated that a minimum exposure time of one second per

short word (four to eight characters) (exclusive of prepositions and other
similar connectors) or two seconds per unit of information, whichever
is largest, should be used for unfamiliar drivers. On a sign having 12 to
16 characters per line, this minimum exposure time will be two
seconds per line." "Exposure time" can also be interpreted as "reading
time" and so used in estimating how long drivers will take to read and
comprehend a sign with a given message

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Characteristics of Highway Users

Suppose a sign reads:

Traffic Conditions
Next 2 Miles
Disabled Vehicle on I-77
Use I-77 Bypass Next Exit

How long does it take to read that message?

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Normal Physical Characteristics

Distance estimation characteristic

It is important for a driver to estimate the distance of a vehicle in front or
behind, and also the distance of a pedestrian crossing the street. Many
traffic accidents occur because of distance estimation errors. The age,
experience and education of the driver is important on distance estimation.

Auditory characteristics
Drivers and pedestrians should have at least a normal auditory level to react to
the warnings and announcements made vocally on highways.

Perception-reaction characteristics
The total time needed for a driver or a pedestrian to see a danger on the
highway, percieve it, decide what to do and apply his/her reaction is named
as the perception-reaction time.
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Perception-reaction characteristics

 PIEV THEORY ▫ Detection. In this phase, an object or condition of concern

enters the driver’s field of vision, and the driver becomes
consciously aware that something requiring a response is
 PERCEPTION present.

▫ Identification. In this phase, the driver acquires sufficient

information concerning the object or condition to allow the
 INTELLECTION consideration of an appropriate response.

▫ Decision. Once identification of the object or condition is

EMOTION sufficiently completed, the driver must analyze the
information and make a decision about how to respond.

VOLITION ▫ Response. After a decision has been reached, the

response is now physically implemented by the driver.

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Characteristics of Highway Users

• PERCEPTION: Time required to perceive an object

• INTELLECTION: Time required for understanding the situation.
• EMOTION: Time elapsed during emotional sensations
and disturbances such as fear, anger or other feelings.
• VOLITION: Time taken for final action

Factors Affecting PRT

• Age
• Fatigue
• Complexity of Reactions
• Presence of Drugs or Alcohol
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Perception-reaction time

USA TÜRKİYE

JAPAN FRANCE
2.5
2 sec
sec. GERMANY
CANADA

SOUTH AFRICA ENGLAND

In literature, it is suggested as;

1.5 sec. for urban highways and
2.0 sec. for rural highways.

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Perception-reaction time for different reliability

level
%50 reliability 1.260 sec.
%85 reliability 1.665 sec.
%99 reliability 2.280 sec.

Perception-reaction time should be increased

0.5 sec
if driver is not warned with a traffic sign or any messages.

Speed (km/h) Length (m)

50 6.94
90 12.50
100 13.89
120 16.67
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130 18.06

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Speed and Perception-reaction time relationship

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Driver Characteristics

Temporary physical characteristics

The effects of these characteristics can be seen on a short or long
term and are results of fatigue, disease and usage of pleasure-
inducing substances (Driving under the influence (DUI))

Mental characteristics
They can be summarized as intelligence, knowledge, good
manners, experience, reading and foreign language knowledge.

Psychological characteristics
Some of them can be listed as, gathering attention,
corresponding with the rules, being patient and calm, tendency
to high speed and accidents.
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Driver Characteristics - Age of driver

Problems of younger drivers

• Difficulty in judging speed, distance and reaction time
• Tend to concentrate on near objects
• Missing the important information, because its
relevance is not understood
• Having difficulty in integrating information
• Under-estimating the risk of accident involvement
• Making less effective driving decisions

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Driver Characteristics - Age of driver

Problems of older drivers

 Difficulties in rapid decision making
• At intersections
 Take time to absorb traffic control information
 Difficulty at night
• Lower light level
• Headlight glare
 Readily fatigued

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Pedestrian Characteristics

• One of the most critical safety problems in any highway and street system
involves the interactions of vehicles and pedestrians. Pedestrian-vehicle
accidents may occur on traffic especially when pedestrians are crossing a
street. For this reason it is important to know the walking speed of pedestrians.
It is especially used on determining the green light time for pedestrians of traffic
lights.
Pedestrian Walking Speed  1 to 1.2 m/s for 85%

Several factors can affect walking speed. They can include:

• age
• gender
• size
• overall fitness level 23

Pedestrian Characteristics

• Gap acceptance is the distance between the pedestrian and the vehicle
approaching at a time when the pedestrian starts to cross the road. The gap
acceptance is taken normally as 35m.
• The speed of the vehicle approaching, the width of the street, waiting time, etc.
are the factors that govern the gap acceptance.

• Gap Acceptance
35 m

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Vehicle Categories

AASHTO - Four main categories :

1) Passenger curs-all passenger cars, SUVs, minivans, vans, and pickup
trucks.
2) Buses-intercity motor coaches, transit buses, school buses, and articulated
buses
3) Trucks-single-unit trucks, tractor-trailer, and tractor semi-trailer combination
vehicles
4) Recreational vehicles-motor homes, cars with various types of trailers (boat,
campers, motorcycles, etc.)

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Vehicle Characteristics - Dimension

Vehicle: According to the Highway Traffic Law 2918, cars which carry people, animal or freight on
highways. Highway vehicles can be categorised into two: as motorised vehicles and unmotorised
vehicles.
Maximum
Vehicle dimensions and weight - Article 128 of the Turkish Road Traffic
Regulation

Dimension of Vehicle

Width : Affect width of traffic lanes, shoulders & parking facilities.

Height : Affects the clearance of overhead structures. Wmax=2.60 m
– Clearance under over bridges, under bridges, electric & other service lines. Hmax = 5.00 m
– Height of driver seat –provide clear vision of the road to his front & sides. (KGM, 2022)
– Height of headlight- affects sight distances at valley curves.
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Vehicle Characteristics - The length of vehicle

Maximum lengths are given below. The lengths given are determined according to the vehicle type and
cannot be made longer.

Article 128 of the

Turkish Road
Traffic Regulation

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Vehicle Characteristics

Length: Important factor in design of Horizontal alignment. It affects:

• Safe overtaking distance

• Capacity of road
• Extra widening
• Minimum turning radius
• Parking facilities
• Design of valley curves.

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Vehicle Characteristics

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Vehicle Characteristics

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Vehicle Characteristics
• Low-speed turning characteristics.
≤ 16 km/h

• High-speed turning characteristics.  It will be explained in detail

later.

Minimum vehicle turning radius: Minimum design turning radius is mostly

used for very slow vehicles (usually with a speed less than 15 km/h).
Turning radius is around 7 m for small vehicles, 13 m for trucks, 15 m for
semi-tractors for 90º turn.

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Vehicle Characteristics – Turn Radii

AASHTO Green Book (2004) Page 19 - Minimum Turning Radii of Design Vehicles

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Vehicle Characteristics – Turn Radii

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Vehicle Characteristics
Acceleration and deceleration of vehicles:
• Acceleration values vary between 0,5-3,0 m/sec² for various types of
vehicles.
• The deceleration value for a vehicle moving with a velocity of 100 km/h is
around 1 m/sec².

Operating costs of motorized vehicles: The operation costs of vehicles can

be categorized as fixed and variable expense items. Variable expenses
emerge as vehicle starts to move. Fixed expenses are independent of vehicle
movements.

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Vehicle Characteristics

For example, for a highway section of 2 km with %5 grade,

operating costs of trucks are approximately
operating costs of trucks
Leq, truck= 2*(2,25)= 4,5 km of straight highway

operating costs of light vehicle

Leq, truck= 2*(1,14)= 2,285 km of straight highway 35

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