Operational characteristics of mixed traffic flow under bi-directional environment using cellular automaton

Mixed traffic flow composed of autos and non-autos widely exists in developing countries and areas. To investigate the operational characteristics of the mixed traffic flow consisting of vehicles in different types ( large vehicles, cars , and bicycles) , we develop a cellular automaton model to replicate the travel behaviors on a bi-directional road segment with respect to the physical and mechanic features of different vehicle types. By implementing the essential parameters calibrated through the field data collection, a numerical study is carried out considering the variation in volume , density , and velocity with different compositions of mixed traffic flows. The primary findings include: the average velocity of traffic flow and total volume decrease 60% and 30% after incorporating 10% bicycles, respectively; the phenomenon of double-summit in terms of the total volume appears when the proportion of bicycle is beyond 60% ; the maximal total volume starts to recover when the proportion of bicycle is higher than 10% .