Paper No.

667

5. DYNAMIC PASSENGER CAR UNITS (PCU)

The PCU is a measure of relative interaction caused by
a vehicle to a traffic stream as compared to standard
passenger car under specified roadway, traffic and
other conditions. For a given facility, roadway and
environmental conditions are remain unchanged during
field observation time and therefore traffic characteristics
like traffic composition, traffic volume, speed of
each category of vehicle and physical dimension of
the vehicle must able to explain all variation in PCU
value for a vehicle type. In this study, PCU has been
considered as dynamic quantity and estimated as per
Equation 2 proposed by Chandra. The dynamic PCU
value for different vehicles under different mixed traffic
conditions is directly proportional to speed ratio and
inversely proportional to space ratio with respect to
standard vehicle.
PCUi =  ... (2)
Where, Vc and Vi are speed of standard car and vehicle
type ‘i’ respectively and Ac and Ai are their projected
rectangular area on the road.
Based on the comprehensive studies conducted during
development of Indo - HCM manual (CSIR - CRRI,
2017), it has been noted that there is no statistically
significant difference between PCU value of any vehicle
types on two lane and intermediate lane roads. However,
PCU value of a vehicle type on a single lane road is
different from that on a two-lane or intermediate lane
road. Therefore, Table 2 gives the range of PCU values
for different types of vehicles separately for single lane
and intermediate and two-lane roads together.

Table 2 Suggested PCU Values for Various Vehicle Types

Range/Median Values of PCUs for
Intermediate and
Vehicle Type Single Lane Roads
Two-Lane Roads
Range Median Range Median
Motorized Traffic
Standard Car (SC) 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00
Big Car (BC) 1.00 - 1.90 1.60 1.13 - 2.50 1.60
Motorized Two Wheeler (TW) 0.20-0.60 0.25 0.20 - 0.50 0.30
Auto rickshaw# (Three and Four Wheeled Rickshaws
1.10 - 2.00 1.20 1.10 - 2.00 1.20
including electric rickshaws)
Bus (B) 2.50 - 6.50 4.50 2.80 - 4.80 4.50
Light Commercial Vehicle (LCV) 1.65 - 4.50 2.70 2.0 - 5.00 3.00
Two / Three Axle Truck (TAT) 2.50 - 6.80 4.80 3.0 - 5.50 5.00
Multi Axle Trucks / Vehicle (MAT) 4.10 - 10.20 5.00 4.60 - 11.60 6.00
Tractor / Tractor Trailer (TT) 3.00 - 8.50 7.00 5.00 - 8.00 7.00
Non Motorized Traffic
Bicycles (C) 0.40 0.40
Cycle Rickshaw (CY) 2.10 2.50
Animal Drawn Vehicle (ADV) 10.20 11.5

6. STREAM EQUIVALENCY FACTOR (Se)
The PCU value of a vehicle type is found to be
sensitive to traffic and roadway conditions. Hence,
a single set of PCU cannot be recommended for all
types of traffic conditions. A small change in either
traffic volume or traffic composition may change PCU
factors substantially, especially for large size vehicles.
Moreover, the values presented in Table 2 are not
sufficient to understand the complete variation in PCU
for a vehicle type. A new concept of Stream Equivalency
Factor (Se) is introduced in this manual to take care of
dynamic nature of PCU (Dhamaniya and Chandra, S.,
2013). is defined as the ratio of flow in PCUs per hour to
the flow in vehicles per hour. This is given in Equation
1. The factor Se is an overall equivalency factor for
the entire traffic stream. It will naturally depend upon
traffic volume and its composition. The value of will
be larger for a traffic stream having more proportion of
vehicles which are larger than standard cars i.e. vehicles
greater than 1400 cc engine size and smaller for a traffic
stream with more number of smaller vehicles. The value
of Se, is found to vary between 0.44 and 3.06. A typical
plot of flow in PCU/h and in veh/h, as obtained from
field data for two lane and intermediate lane roads, is
presented in Fig. 3 whereas Fig. 4 depicts similar plot
for single lane roads. A straight line relationship with
zero intercept suggests the average value of Se. As the

Journal of the indian Roads Congress, July - September, 2017 63