Different methods for estimation of dynamic passenger car units – A review

Abstract

In India, heterogeneous traffic conditions are prevailing due to a variety of vehicles with different static and dynamic characteristics. It is necessary to convert mixed traffic into homogeneous traffic by using Passenger Car Unit (PCU) values. Roadway and traffic conditions on urban roads vary considerably across the cities which generally affects the PCU values of different vehicles and the capacity of the roadway. This shows the dynamic nature of PCU values. PCU values are widely used in traffic capacity analysis, determination of Level Of Service (LOS), saturation flow rate, signal design and coordination, and
development of traffic flow models. Because of these wide applications, the accuracy of dynamic PCU values is very important. Many researches have been carried out on the estimation of dynamic PCU values. This paper presents different methods for estimating dynamic PCU appropriate for heterogeneous traffic conditions on Indian roads. The challenges in estimating PCU values and future directions for improving the PCU estimation methods are also presented in this paper.