Development of traffic stream characteristics models for intercity roads in Egypt

Literatures revealed that there are no accurate models that describe the relationship between traffic steam parameters on intercity roads in Egypt. Therefore, the main objective of this research was to develop these relationships. Traffic data of flow rate, speed, and density were collected from three study sections in Cairo-Ismailia desert road and Cairo-Suez desert road, using video-based measurement technique. Traffic data were collected during typical weekdays and weekend. Samples were recorded in different times of the day to represent all conditions of traffic flow on the selected road sections. Using the collected traffic data, the traffic stream models were obtained. Different types of single and multi-regime models have been checked. Two criteria have been flowed to differentiate between these models: statistical tests and logic of the output parameters. Based on these tests, three-regime statistical models were found the best models to describe the relationships among the different traffic stream characteristics. Analysis of these models showed that, the jam and optimum densities are 167.77 and 61.72 pcu/km/lane respectively. The free-flow and optimum speeds are 109.58 and 28.08 km/h respectively, and the lane capacity is about 1732.9 pcu/h/lane.