STUDY THE EFFECT ON DELAY AND FUEL CONSUMPTION ON TOLL PLAZA (KEY IJP************029)

• Pramod Kumar,Shivani

Abstract

Indian roads carry a huge volume of traffic, more than 40% of the total traffic is carried by national highway having length less than 2% of total road length in India. Thus the national highways contribute to carrying a great proportion of traffic density. With the great significance of national highways, existing checkpoints in Indian road like toll plaza, intersection, cause a halt in the vehicular movement. Further, the ever increases traffic volume causes delay in journey time and hence result in extra fuel consumption.In the current study, delay in journey time and the resulting extra fuel consumption at Gharaunda toll plaza (Haryana) is estimated on NH 44 (earlier NH 1). The delay in journey time is computed by using Control Delay Method of Highway Capacity Manual (HCM 2000). The control delay method has initial delay, queue time, stop delay and acceleration delay. Considering this control delay method, a stretch of total 400 meters around the toll plaza is taken for the delay time assessment study, that is, a point from where vehicle start decelerating from 80% of design speed, moving towards zero speed and again accelerating to the 80% of design speed. The study includes surveys of traffic volume for determination of Lean Hours, Average Hours and Peak Hours, called as Congestion levels. The survey is conducted during weekdays and weekend both, to minimize the abruptions in experimental data. Assessment of total delay during Peak Hours, Average Hours and Lean Hours is done manually using stopwatch. And, the extra fuel consumption of different type of vehicles due to a specific non optimum speed range is calculated. For assessing the fuel consumption at non optimum speed, values of fuel consumption are taken from the graph of Speed vs Fuel Consumption curves from CRRI Annual Data Report, 2009-10. Computed extra fuel consumption and delay give a better insight into comparing the results at different level of congestion and thus providing a base for better planning of road infrastructure.