Post Valentine Note on Love (Yes, LOVE!)

"..that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them." John17:26

Love is the arterial highway of life. May you walk along it this day and every single day. :)

Thursdays: Traffic Engineering Terms

Thursdays of the week is the time to enrich your knowledge in traffic engineering. The following definitions of traffic engineering terms were taken from Dr. Ricardo Sigua in his book Fundamentals of Traffic Engineering published by the University of the Philippines Press in 2008. The terms are quoted below:

“Density – the number of vehicles in a given length of road at an instant point in time.

Design speed – the maximum safe speed that can be maintained over a specified section of highway when conditions are so favorable that the design features of the highway govern.

Dijkstra’s algorithm – a procedure used in route assignment stage of the four-step model to determine the shortest path from one node of the network to another.

Diplomatic vehicles – motor vehicles owned by a foreign government or by their diplomatic officials in the Philippines.

Disaggregate choice model – a method used for determining modal split, which assumes that a person will use a particular mode with maximum utility for him.

ETC – Electronic Toll Collection; an ITS application

Expressway – a major divided highway designed for high-speed travel, having few or no intersections; also called freeway or limited access highway.”

Other terms will be posted next week. So, wait and learn more.

Thursdays: Traffic Engineering Terms

Thursdays of the week is the time to enrich your knowledge in traffic engineering. The following definitions of traffic engineering terms were taken from Dr. Ricardo Sigua in his book Fundamentals of Traffic Engineering published by the University of the Philippines Press in 2008. The terms are quoted below:

“Channelization – geometric improvement normally applied at intersections to simplify movements of vehicles to lead drivers to face one conflict at a time.

Clearance interval – the sum of yellow and all-red period in between phases.

Clotoid – a spiral that serves as a transition path as the vehicle enters or leaves a circular curve.

Compound curve – a two-arc simple curve having its centers on the same side of the common tangent.

Cordon counts – counts used to determine the number of vehicles and/or persons entering and leaving an enclosed area.

Crest vertical curve – a vertical curve with the parabolic curve drawn below the two tangents.

Critical gap – describes the minimum gaps needed by drivers of minor road vehicles.

Cycle – one complete indication of green, yellow, and red signals.

D/D/l – a sing-server queuing system with regularity of both arrivals and departures.

Delineators – small reflective panels or buttons mounted on guide posts or guard fences as an effective aid for night driving.”


Other terms will be posted next week. So, wait and learn more.

Commonwealth Avenue “Killer Highway”

The Commonwealth Avenue has been tagged as “The Killer Highway” for quite some time because of the greatest number of road crashes among motorists as well as pedestrians resulting to remarkable number of deaths that happen along this corridor. 24 January 2010 Monday, however, marked the start of the MMDA campaign to introduce some traffic regulations and monitoring to improve and lessen the number of road accidents in Commonwealth Avenue.

Prior to the campaign, Commonwealth Avenue is a 9-lane wide and very long stretch of corridor where vehicles are free to move, swerve, and travel at desired speeds. There were few designated bus/jeepney stops, pedestrian overpass, and several u-turn slots which were not strictly followed by road users. Notable accidents that have occured involved motorcycles, buses, private cars and jaywalkers run over by vehicles. It is important to note that the high occurence of road accidents here may be due to lack of traffic regulations and monitoring on the part of concerned government agencies, lack of discipline among motorists, inadeaquacy in the physical design and signages of the road, and several other factors.

The MMDA, this week, introduced several changes both in the physical design and traffic regulation, monitoring and management. The physical improvements include a yellow lane on the two outermost lanes designated for PUVs/PUJs, the five middle lanes are for private cars and the two innermost lanes will be used to access the U-turn slots. A speed limit of 60kph was also imposed for the motorists. Several traffic enforcers using speed guns were assigned at certain parts of the corridor to monitor and apprehend overspeeding motorists.

It is hoped that through these improvements the Commonwealth Avenue will no longer be tagged as the killer highway. Yet better and safer road environment will only be achieved when the motorists comply and whole-heartedly follow the traffic rules and regulations, the MMDA, with utmost integrity, would maintain good physical design with adequate signages and continue in its traffic monitoring and implementation, and the pedestrians will only use the pedestrian overpass in crossing the highway. Assessments should also be done six months or a year after the implementation to measure the effectiveness of the changes introduced.

Would the improvements really change the nickname, “killer highway,” to something like “safest highway”? It is surely worth noting in the future what Commonwealth Avenue had become when all stakeholders actively have taken part to make it better and safer road corridor. Till the next post on Commonwealth Avenue!