2015 - India - Studying Effect of Weight-To-Power Ratio on Acceleration Profile of Trucks under Varying Gradient Conditions

The effect of grade is very significant on traffic flow characteristics. While negotiating a particular upward gradient, the vehicles will have to overcome the grade resistance additionally along with other resistances (air resistance, rolling resistance and resistance due to inertia). An important aspect of road geometry design is the provision of safe distances to allow vehicle to change speed from low or moderate speed flows to high speed flows, and vice versa. On level roads, vehicles may maintain their speeds uniformly. However, on upgrades, heavy vehicles such as trucks, will experience significant reduction in their speeds, whereas, passenger cars and other smaller vehicles such as motorized-two-wheelers may experience relatively lesser speed reduction. Similarly, the effect of gradient on truck performance on upgrade and downgrade are not same. One of the approaches, to estimate the acceleration rates of truck for different grades to develop the various traffic flow models. The main objective of this study is to study the effect of weight-to-power ratio on truck accelerating characteristics for varying magnitude of gradients. The outcome of the study is expected to explain the dynamics of trucks on grades.