Purdue University
School of Civil Engineering
CE 361 Introduction to Transportation Engineering
Mon. 31 August 2020
Lesson 2 on Traffic Flow Theory and Analysis:
Measuring Traffic Speeds and Densities
Instructional Objectives:
By the end of this lesson,
the student will be able to ...
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Explain how vehicle speeds are measured and used.
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Design an experiment to determine traffic density.
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Distinguish between density and occupancy, and explain how to convert from one to the other.
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Explain how loop detectors are used to measure occupancy.
Course offering at Purdue: CE463 Highway Traffic Characteristics
Prep:
Read Section 2.2 in FTE2.
Theme Music:
I Can't Drive 55, Sammy Hagar, 1984, 4:16.
Fast Car, Tracy Chapman, 200x, 4:57
Speeding Cars, Imogen Heap, 2005, 3:32
"very fast car driving"
video, 3:46
Outline of Likely Topics
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Speed calculations
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Density
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Detector loops and occupancy calculations
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Freeway 16 traffic data
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Traffic calming? (1:08)
