Estimating Passenger Car Unit Factors for Buses and Animal Driven Carts in Gaza City, Palestine

Abstract

Transportation engineers and professionals in Palestine do not have local standards to use for passenger car unit (PCU) values. They currently use standards adopted by other countries without local validation. In this work the authors are trying to provide local validation for some PCU values. The purpose of this paper is to estimate PCU values for buses and animal-driven carts at signalized intersections in Gaza City. PCU (or passenger-car equivalent unit, PCEU) is a factor used to convert all vehicle types other than passenger car into passenger car. The research team collected the required data at three main signalized intersections in Gaza City using a digital video recorder. To calculate PCU values the headway method was used. Statistical analysis of the results shows that a PCU value for buses was found to be 2.0 while that for animal-driven carts was 1.67. The PCU for a bus in Gaza was found to be similar to that in UK but different from India. The PCU for an animal-driven cart in Gaza was found to be different from that in India. Local traffic engineers may now use these results with more confidence of their local applicability. However, it is recommended to conduct further research on other vehicle types as well as to confirm the obtained PCU value for animal-driven carts. Keywords: Passenger car unit (PCU), Headway Method, bus, animal-driven cart, Gaza, Palestine.