Traffic factors for the design of roadway geometries and pavement structures in kuwait

Traffic volume on a road network is an important factor in the planning and design of roadway facilities. Geometric and structural design of roadways depends among other factors on traffic volumes, their mix characteristics, loads, and their distribution with time of the day, day of the week and month of the year. Roadway geometries and pavement designs in Kuwait are usually carried out using assumed values for traffic flow including those of AADT, PHV, DHV, D-factor, %k factor, design lane factor and speed. It is also a common practice to estimate AADT from short-term counts using judgmental expansion factors. The absence of realistic data with regard to the above factors may lead to erroneous designs. Errors in design may be of concern from economic and road safety points of view. Kuwait University and the Ministry of Interior established continuous count stations at seventeen locations on the four functional types of roadways in Kuwait. This paper presents the calculated values of the traffic parameters for use in geometric and pavement designs of different classes of roadways, which were determined from data obtained from the continuous traffic count stations. The results are expected to be of considerable benefit to several public and private agencies including the Ministry of Public Works, Ministry of Interior, Kuwait Municipality, as well as planning and engineering consultants in Kuwait