Highway Capacity Research on Inter-urban Highways in India

Many countries in the world have developed their own highway capacity manuals incorporating influence of local conditions on traffic flow behavior. India has also taken a giant step towards this goal. This paper presents the status of highway capacity research in India on inter-urban highways including single lane, intermediate lane, two lane and multilane highways, expressways and freeways. It gives an overview of capacity related studies during last four decades and discusses the challenges before the researchers while developing the highway capacity manual for Indian conditions, particularly due to mixed nature of traffic and non-lane based movement of vehicles on Indian highways.