Fundamentals of Transportation/Operations/Additional Problems

Additional Questions

1. Where does the $E_{T}$ and $E_{R}$ come from, how was it computed?
2. How much does future growth influence the planning and development of new roads?
3. Why design roads for use today when the road won’t be built until next year?
4. How is weather addressed in design?
5. How do you adjust for trucks and buses and recreational vehicles (rvs) when computing the heavy vehicle factor? Are trucks, buses, and rvs considered passenger vehicles? Do heavy vehicle factors vary greatly? Is there a set number? What is a passenger car equivalent? What type of vehicles are subject to $f_{H}V$
6. What is level of service? What are the different levels? Describe LOS F.
7. Why are there adjustment factors when computing service flow? What are they?
8. How do freeways differ from other roads? What do we mean when we model a freeway as a pipeline?
9. What is the trade-off when we narrow or widen a lane? Why is 12’ ideal?
10. What is the assumed population adjustment factor $f_{p}$
11. Name some “ideal conditions” for use in freeway section LOS analysis
12. How do you compute maximum service flow? How does $f_{H}V$ affect MSF?
13. Explain the hierarchy of roads
14. At what LOS does $(V/C)_{i}$) = 1
15. How does the number of lanes affect capacity? Why is this non-linear? (If I go from 1 lane to two lanes does the capacity double, more than double, or less than double?)
16. Is MSF computed with ideal or non-ideal conditions?
17. What are parameters in designing for LOS?
18. What is lane width in ideal conditions
19. What is pcphpl
20. What is the “ideal” number of freeway lanes?
21. What is the percent of heavy vehicles in ideal conditions?
22. Why does the grade of the terrain affect non-passenger vehicles
23. Would oncoming vehicles be considered lateral obstacles?
24. What is the idea of "design year"?
25. In the interest / growth rate equation, what is principal?
26. Why is the 30th highest hour used (not the 40th, not the 20th)?
27. Describe the differences between rural 2 lane highways and freeways. Why do freeways have a higher capacity? What is the maximum of each?
28. What is the design hour factor, how does it differ from the peak hour factor? What method is used to determine the hourly volume as a share of AADT (K)? Where is it used?
29. What assumptions need to be made about 2-lane rural roads. How are these different than analysis of freeway sections?
30. What are the two levels of analysis for two-lane rural highways
31. What is the directional split on rural highways? Why do we assume 60/40 directional split for rural highway planning, why not 50/50?
32. How accurate are the growth rates? Compare them to more sophisticated planning models developed at the beginning of the semester
33. What is the difference between the SF equation for two lane roads and freeways.
34. How is capacity found?
35. Where does the v/c factor come from when evaluating rural highways