Akhilesh Kumar Maurya

• Ph D
• Professor (Full) at Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati

Microscopic simulation tools are vital for traffic engineering applications, including traffic flow analysis, safety evaluation, and infrastructure planning. PTV VISSIM is a widely used microsimulation tool that requires accurate calibration to replicate field conditions. This study discusses two microscopic approaches to calibrate the Wiedemann-99...

Increased pedestrian–vehicle interactions, especially at signalized intersection crosswalks, have resulted in more pedestrian fatalities, and this situation worsens under heterogeneous traffic conditions. Therefore, evaluating pedestrian road-crossing safety is crucial, especially at signalized intersection crosswalks. This article aims to study pe...

Pedestrian safety is critical as they are vulnerable on the roads. Long intersection waiting times may cause pedestrians to disregard signals and cross during red phases. Vehicle conflict requires quick reactions from both pedestrians and drivers. To address these concerns in Kolkata, India, where pedestrian accidents are increasing, data were coll...

Paratransit modes have emerged as a solution for urban dwellers who rely on public transportation for mobility and accessibility. These modes differ according to technology, socioeconomic status, and population size of various urban centres. E-Rickshaw, an electric three-wheeled paratransit mode that is affordable, flexible, and provides door-to-do...

One of the crucial aspects in the study of the safety performance of roads in hilly terrain is driver speed behavior. Minimum speed and maximum speed attained on curves and tangents respectively can be considered critical speeds and their positions can be termed critical speed positions for assessment of driver behavior on hilly roads. In the prese...

The present study attempts to compare seven tree-based models (including ensembles) to suggest the best modeling approach for identifying the dominating factors (microscopic, macroscopic, and geometric) and predicting the walking speeds over elevated walkways. The results show that Gradient Boosted Trees and Light Gradient Boosted Trees outperforme...

Increased pedestrian-vehicle interactions, especially at urban signalized intersection crosswalks, have ensued in higher pedestrian fatalities, and such situations further worsen under heterogeneous traffic conditions. Therefore, evaluating pedestrian road crossing safety becomes crucial, especially at signalized intersection crosswalks. The articl...

Automated vehicles (AVs) are a promising solution for the future of trans-portation. As human factors are responsible for 90-95% of accidents, the in-tegration of Advanced Driver Assistance Technology (ADAS) in vehicles has the potential to significantly reduce crashes. Furthermore, numerous studies have confirmed the benefits of these vehicles in...

Pedestrian safety is critical as they are vulnerable on roads. Lengthy intersection waiting times may lead pedestrians to disregard signals and cross during red phases. Conflicts with vehicles necessitate quick reactions from both pedestrians and drivers. To address these concerns in Kolkata, India, where pedestrian accidents are increasing, data w...

The paper aims to study the effects of an individual type of vehicle’s volume of both in-line and opposing traffic on the speed of vehicles. A relatively few studies have been conducted in India to observe the effect of opposing traffic volume on the speed of different vehicles and the entire traffic stream, whereas bidirectional traffic condition...

The study primarily seeks to investigate the behavioral attribution of distraction in pedestrian road crossing. A distraction-themed questionnaire survey was conducted across Kolkata city, India, to understand the contribution of distraction to near-misses and injuries. The survey response showed that among all reported respondents, 13.7% (61) enco...

Unlike lane-based traffic where each driver has a distinct leader, the subject driver in disorderly traffic may interact with multiple vehicles in-front. The existence of lateral interactions among the vehicles in-front adds even more complexity to modeling the human-driving process. Utilizing trajectory data extracted from an instrumented vehicle...

Pedestrian response time is a significant indicator of safety. A total of 2800 pedestrian observations were made at eight intersection crosswalks across Kolkata city (India). With the help of hazard-based duration models, the response time during evasive action has been analyzed. The Kaplan-Meier curve has been plotted to understand the survival pr...

The performance evaluation and expansion/redesigning of a pedestrian facility depend on the Pedestrian Level of Service (PLOS). Indo-HCM (2017) has recently developed LOS for foot over bridges (FOBs) considering five locations across different Indian cities. However, no study has been conducted over elevated walkways such as skywalks. Hence, the cu...

Driver error in distinguishing preceding and upcoming horizontal curves can lead to single-vehicle fatal crashes. The 3D perspective views of different horizontal curve stimuli were used to examine a representative sample of volunteering drivers’ ability to distinguish consecutive horizontal curves. A probit model, developed using the recorded resp...

Reaction delay is an indispensable factor in the operation and control process of drivers in a car-following scenario. Utilizing trajectory data obtained from an instrumented vehicle, this paper proposes a data-driven neural network car-following model incorporating instantaneous reaction delay of the drivers in nonlane-based (or disorderly) traffi...

The current chapter discusses about the types of pedestrian facilities, pedestrian flow characteristics, methods of data collection, modeling approaches, level of service concept, and application of soft computing approaches. Macroscopic factors (speed and flow rate) and microscopic factors (gender, age, and luggage) were widely considered paramete...

Conventional traffic car-following and lane-changing models are not valid for mixed traffic conditions, which consist of a variety of vehicle types maintaining a weak or no lane discipline. Therefore, studies related to vehicle dynamics, driver behavior, including the simultaneous lateral and longitudinal interactions are important to model these c...

The present study aims to investigate the impact of social information on pedestrians’ red-light violation compared to non-social information. The binary logistic regression model predicting signal violation behaviour highlighted that crossing speed, waiting time for safe crossing, and signal cycle length significantly influence the signal violatio...

Mixed traffic conditions are characterized by a haphazard spatial arrangement of diverse vehicle types along the entire width of the roadway. Vehicles in such traffic environments evaluate opportunities for possible lateral movements while progressing longitudinally. This phenomenon gives rise to a two-dimensional movement of vehicles (both longitu...

Pedestrian signal violation is a significant concern among policymakers and traffic engineers as this leads to a pedestrian-vehicle crash. The waiting time for a pedestrian at intersections is crucial in street-crossing decision-making. Once pedestrians terminate their waiting behaviour during the red-light period, they would cross in the red light...

This co-edited book focuses on the state-of-the-art research in transportation in India. Exploring the need for a sustainable transport paradigm in India, this timely book offers solution concepts for mobility and infrastructure challenges faced by local, state, and national transport authorities. The contents provide a holistic understanding of th...

In mixed and no-lane disciplined traffic, the vehicles travel abreast due to the variations in their size and non-standard widths; so it becomes essential to consider both the lateral and linear clearances simultaneously for defining the vehicle’s interaction. In this present study, the impact of median type (width and height) on the lateral gap (s...

The current study tries to understand pedestrian movement behavior and perception for a non-mechanized FOB (with a narrow width, without lifts and security) which was later reconstructed into a mechanized FOB (with wider walkway width, proper functioning lifts and deployment of security) in Guwahati city (Assam) under mixed land use type. Both vide...

Safety is a major concern when dealing with the geometry of the road. To improve safety, designers started using operating speed prediction models in a geometric design. So far, the majority of the available works on speed models was focused on 85th percentile speeds, giving less importance for the rest of the percentile speeds models. However, the...

Pedestrian signal violation is a significant concern among policymakers and traffic engineers as this leads to a pedestrian-vehicle crash. The waiting time for a pedestrian at intersections is crucial in street-crossing decision-making. A total of 2089 red-light arriving pedestrian observations were made at eight intersection crosswalks across Kolk...

Even though mobile phones have innumerable benefits like convenient and faster communication, entertainment, and even life-saving opportunities, the frequent use of mobile on-road environment has led to unintended safety and operational consequences. Recently, the research focus has extended from distracted drivers to distracted pedestrians. This s...

Preference of pedestrians in using elevated walkways (skywalks) is influenced by different factors. In the present study an interviewer-administered questionnaire survey was conducted, and an attempt was made to predict the factors impacting choice of using skywalks under two different contexts (safety-security and mobility friction) using advanced...

Noise pollution is an emerging environmental threat, prolonged exposure of which can cause annoyance, sleep disturbance, hypertension, psychiatric disorders, and also hormonal dysfunction. Among all the sources of noise pollution, the noise generated by road vehicle traffic significantly affects the quality of urban environments. Concerning the rec...

The unprecedented shock triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant impact on public transportation services, travel behavior and mode choice preferences. Increasing risk of virus contagion in shared travel modes might result in a systemic shift from public transport to car commute. Such a shift causes increased congestions, emissions...

Accurate estimation of factors affecting pedestrian walking speed is of paramount importance for efficient operation and management of at-grade and grade-separated infrastructures (such as foot over bridges or skywalks). Understanding such factors helps in planning for better circulation of pedestrians within confined elevated passageways as well a...

Noise pollution is an emerging environmental threat, prolonged exposure of which can cause annoyance, sleep disturbance, hypertension, psychiatric disorders and also hormonal dysfunction. Among all the sources of noise pollution, the noise generated by road vehicle traffic significantly affects the quality of urban environments. Concerning the rece...

The current study primarily seeks to investigate the behavioural attribution of distraction in road crossing behaviour. An observational field study of 2360 pedestrians was conducted at three signalised intersections to compare the crossing behaviour for pedestrian-involved in distraction vs no distraction. The results revealed that about 28.7% of...

Estimation of pedestrian walking speed using fundamental diagrams is quite popular among researchers. However, to predict the walking speed based on the different microscopic parameters and geometric conditions requires the use of machine learning techniques. In the present study, an attempt is made to estimate the walking speed over elevated walkw...

The present study investigated factors associated with pedestrian crossing speed and safety margin at intersection crosswalks. Two ordinary least square regression model were estimated, one for crossing speed and another for safety margin. Crossing speed model estimates highlighted that pedestrian gender, age, group size and luggage significantly i...

The identification, understanding, and treatment of predictors that drive the use of pedestrian overpass or Foot Over Bridge (FOB) is very much essential for city planners and policymakers. There are paucity of studies that uses modern soft computing techniques to understand the factors driving the use of FOBs. The aim of the work presented here wa...

The study aimed to understand the factors profoundly affecting the present motive of the pedestrians to use the foot overbridges (FOBs) in two different cities of India and also put forward recommendation based on the pedestrians’ suggestions to improve its future usability. An interviewer-administered questionnaire survey was conducted over two ci...

The main objective of the current study was to develop simulation models for the different pedestrian facilities (such as sidewalk, walkway and foot over bridge) in Gangtok near M.G. Marg, and estimate the capacity for such facilities. The data collected from the field was used as input for the development of the simulation models using VISWALK com...

Driver safety is one of the prime concerns of traffic engineers in the design and construction of highways. Highway collision causes both social and economic losses. So the primary focus is always there in understanding the driver behavior over various geometric sections for the development of safe geometric roads. So in this study, an attempt was...

Complex maneuvering patterns are typical of motorized two-wheelers (MTWs), and their widespread adoption in many countries has spurred a growing response from transport researchers to model their dynamic behavior realistically. Considering the increased vulnerability of MTW drivers in dense urban mixed traffic systems, proper evaluation and modelin...

Speed and lateral position of free-flowing vehicles are the performance measures of roadway geometric elements. Most of the earlier studies evaluated a threshold headway based free-flow criteria at an observation station and considered the relevant vehicles for estimation of speed and lateral position. However, evaluation of free-flow at one observ...

The aim of the current study was identifying the critical factors influencing the use of pedestrian skywalk facilities under the Indian context. An interviewer-administered questionnaire survey was conducted to understand the perception of the pedestrians using the skywalks under the existing conditions. Further, forward stepwise binary logistic re...

Filtering of motorised two-wheelers (MTWs) is a common practice in dense urban heterogeneous traffic environments where they often tend to navigate through the available lateral spaces (commonly termed as ‘pore’ in the literature) described by the vehicles in-front. Considering the increased vulnerability of MTW riders in dense urban systems, prope...

Developing countries have heterogeneous traffic conditions with weak or no lane- discipline, which allows vehicles to occupy entire width of the road. Various scenarios may trigger the decision of a following driver to pass or to follow a slow moving vehicle in front of it, that too without maintaining lanes. This paper presents some techniques to...

Different geometric parameters (e.g., radius, curve length and preceding tangent length) affects vehicle speed in horizontal curve. Inconsistency in driver’s speed selection may lead to unsafe situation at horizontal curve. The differences between operating speed of successive elements and deviation with design speed of single element have been use...

The design input parameters such as vehicular operating speed, deceleration rate and driver’s perception reaction time considered in the geometric design of highways exhibit considerable uncertainty in practical scenario. As such, in this context, the probabilistic approach or reliability based approach is essential in highway geometric design whic...

The paper compares pedestrian movement behavior over foot over bridges in four different cities of India under the same land use type (commercial area). The data was collected at commercial locations on weekdays in the cities of Kolkata, Bengaluru, Guwahati and New Delhi using videography technique. Radar charts and box plots were used to predict t...

The placement of vehicle within a curve is a crucial factor with regards to safety as it influences its frictional requirement. The lateral placement of vehicle can be defined as the lateral distance from the centreline or outer edge of the road to the front tire of the vehicle. Limited study has been documented in the literature regarding this cru...

In the current study, a comparative analysis was made between pedestrian flow characteristics over four skywalk facilities under different land use types in the city of Mumbai, India. Videography technique was used to collect data from Andheri (commercial), Ghatkopar (residential), Vile Parle (shopping) and Santa Cruz (educational) skywalks, and fu...

This study highlights the role of parents in the decision-making process through their perceptions of safety, economic standards, and child characteristics. Findings suggest that parents usually prefer schools near their residence, and cars are the most widely preferred mode of transport (>50%) as parents find them to be safe, fast, comfortable and...

This paper investigates the free-flow condition suitable for four-lane divided highways and proposes spatial free-flow speed-based operating speed prediction models. The 85th percentile speed (V 85) of spatially evaluated free-flow vehicles (passenger car, light commercial vehicle, and heavy commercial vehicle) at the curve center were analyzed wit...

Poor coordination between geometric elements of horizontal curves can lead to unsafe speed. This study evaluated the effect of horizontal curve geometry on vehicle speed distribution for a four-lane divided highway and developed prediction models for mean speed and standard deviation. Spot speed data of passenger cars (PC), heavy commercial vehicle...

Disorderly traffic streams are those that, simply stated, do not have parallel lines (or lanes) of vehicles but have vehicles distributed more haphazardly in the road space. Vehicles in such streams, while moving longitudinally, change their lateral positions frequently. Their trajectories have a more pronounced wander along the width or the latera...

The paper aims at comparing between movement of pedestrians over an elevated/access-controlled sidewalk, a horizontal at-grade sidewalk and a gradient sidewalk and also analyses the pedestrian flow characteristics such as age, gender and carrying of baggage. The pedestrian data were collected using videography technique at three different types of...

While anecdotal evidence suggests the consideration of a constant time-to-collision (TTC) threshold in advanced driver assistance systems, yet the prospect of the warning criterion acting as a catalyst for the evaluation of conflict severities in non-lane based traffic environments needs further assessment. The current study attempts to provide a c...

complexities in the collection and processing of reliable time-series car-following data of non-lane based traffic environments. Proper estimation of car-following data can suitably ameliorate the realism of traffic sub-models and is still a demanding task. This study describes an image-based in-vehicle trajectory data collection system for the est...

Researchers have studied two-lane rural highways to predict the operating speed on horizontal curves and correlated it with safety. However, the driving characteristics of four-lane-divided highways are different. Weak lane discipline is observed in these facilities, which influences vehicle speed in adjacent lane or space. So, irrespective of its...

Different maneuvering patterns of vehicles, absence of lane discipline and interactions of a large number of vehicles with each other and with roadway features make the traffic phenomena of non-lane-based traffic streams more complex. Vehicles’ movement in weak lane discipline traffic is rather two-dimensional because they always tend to evaluate p...

Differences in driving style and static and dynamic attributes of motorized two-wheelers (MTWs) provide MTW riders more flexibility than other traffic in choosing higher speeds, erratic driving patterns, and erratic trajectories. In an attempt to model the unique dynamic movement patterns of MTW riders, the current study investigates the filtering...

Differences in driving style, static and dynamic attributes of motorized two-wheelers (MTWs) from rest of the traffic provide MTW riders more flexibility in choosing higher speeds, erratic driving patterns and trajectories. In an attempt to model the unique dynamic movement patterns of MTW riders, the current study investigates the filtering behavi...

Differences in driving style, static and dynamic attributes of motorized two-wheelers (MTWs) from rest of the traffic provide MTW riders more flexibility in choosing higher speeds, erratic driving patterns and trajectories. In an attempt to model the unique dynamic movement patterns of MTW riders, the current study investigates the filtering behavi...

Driver errors are one of the primary reasons for single vehicle fatal crashes in the horizontal curves. Perception of sharpness influences such error. Hence, this research aims to study driver’s perception of horizontal curve sharpness and develop design criteria for consistent and safe highway geometric features. Using the perspective of different...

Driver safety is one of the major concerns of traffic engineers while designing and constructing highways. Highway accidents lead to both social and economic losses. Accident rates on horizontal curves are higher than those on tangent sections. Studies on safe geometric design have hypothesized constant acceleration/deceleration along the curve for...

Vehicle headway distributions provide an efficient representation of the uncertainties in traffic flows that have diverse applications in capacity estimation, safety evaluation, planning, design of roadway systems and in traffic operation studies. The current study is aimed at investigating the applicability of the copula approach to accommodate th...

Present paper reviewed the past studies on pedestrian flow characteristics (such as speed, flow, density, space, free-flow speed and jam density) and development of Pedestrian Level of Service (PLOS) for various pedestrian facilities (i.e., sidewalk, walkway, crosswalk, grade separated, stairways and escalators. Fundamental relationships (between s...

On heterogeneous and non-lane discipline traffic, the drivers have to control the vehicle’s position in longitudinal direction of motion along with the lateral direction, i.e., the width of the roadway. The relation between dynamic parameters (speed and lateral/longitudinal acceleration) can very well represent the driving behavior of vehicles. In...

Indian traffic is highly heterogeneous consisting of all-inclusive vehicle characteristics, occupying any lateral position over the entire road width which results in vehicles continuous interaction with the neighbouring vehicles (in both longitudinal and lateral directions), indicating two-dimensional (2D) traffic manoeuvre, opposite to the tradit...

Developing countries have heterogeneous traffic conditions with weak or no lane - discipline, which allows vehicles to occupy entire width of the road. When a vehicle approaches slow moving vehicles in front of it, the driver will decide w hether to overtake or follow it, based upon certain traffic conditions. In this paper, the authors have...

Consistency in the geometric design of highway is one of the major factors to achieve while designing. In highway design consistency, vehicle stability is a significant concern to ascertain the safe traffic operation. Vehicles moving on curved roads (horizontal/vertical), experiences the excessive centrifugal forces, which leads to the vehicles rol...

The current study investigates the applicability of the copula approach to capture the potential dependence among microscopic traffic variables (time headway, speed and centreline separation) and the joint probabilistic behaviour of the variables in staggered car-following conditions, using trajectory data from video recording of a four-lane divide...

Precise understanding of the factors affecting the choice of following time headway in staggered car-following conditions is essential on the part of traffic modelers to provide a detailed representation of traffic flow, which has a predominant role in micro-simulation model development, safety evaluation, capacity estimation and evaluation of traf...

Developing countries have heterogeneous traffic conditions with weak lane-discipline, which allows vehicles to occupy entire width of the road. When a vehicle approaches slow moving vehicles in front of it, the driver will decide whether to overtake or follow it. This paper estimates this overtaking decision in mixed traffic conditions, based on pa...

Traffic stream of developing countries have a characteristic heterogeneous traffic stream moving in a weak or no lane-discipline. Vehicle-following behavior is in a staggered fashion, with following gap changing as per amount of stagger (centerline separation in lateral direction), vehicle type of leading vehicle and following vehicles and also the...

Traffic stream of developing countries have a characteristic heterogeneous traffic stream moving in a weak or no lane-discipline. Vehicle-following behavior is in a staggered fashion, with following gap changing as per amount of stagger (centerline separation in lateral direction), vehicle type of leading vehicle and following vehicles and also the...

Acceleration/deceleration (A/D) behaviour of vehicles is important for various applications like length of yellow light at inter- section, determination of sight distances at intersection, determination of length of A/D lanes, ramp design, traffic simulation modelling, vehicular emission modelling, instantaneous fuel consumption rate modelling, etc...

Motorised two-wheeler (MTW) has emerged as the most widely used transportation mode for short distance trips in many Asian and European countries because of its affordable price and flexibility in manoeuvring through traffic. Its small size and aggressive riding patterns can considerably affect the overall traffic flow characteristics and safety. M...

Heterogeneous traffic conditions prevail in developing countries. Vehicles maintain weak lane discipline which increases lateral interactions of vehicles significantly. It is necessary to study these interactions in the form of maintained lateral gaps for modeling this traffic scenario. This paper aims at determining lateral clearances maintained b...

Study of vehicle time headways has been a subject to many aspects of traffic flow studies because time headway between any two successive vehicles is considered as an important parameter affecting capacity, safety, delay, driver behavior and level of service of a transportation system. Although a large number of studies exist in the field of time h...