Hourly and Daily Traffic Expansion Factors on Selected Roads in Gaza, Palestine

Background: The shortage of sufficient, reliable and continuous traffic data in many developing countries makes it difficult for traffic engineers and researchers. Traffic data are essential for both planning and design of transportation facilities. Objective: This work tries to provide data that in order to help local experts in Gaza city to provide better estimates of the average daily traffic (ADT) and hence better transportation facilities. Methods: The analysis and discussion are based on continuous traffic flow counts conducted on three selected main streets in Gaza. Data were collected for 24 hours on seven consecutive days on each street. Results: The results indicate that the average hourly expansion factors(HEFs) have a margin of error for the period between 7:00 and 16:00 that does not exceed ±3%. The results also indicate that the average daily expansion factors (DEFs) on the three streets have a maximum margin of error of 3.2% on both Sunday and Monday. On the other hand, the analysis proved that the maximum peak hour volume was 2864 vehicles/hour on Al Jalaa Street between 7:00 and 8:00 and the average peak-to-daily ratio (p/d) of the three streets was found to be 7.18%. The maximum directional traffic split (D) was found to be 60% in the heaviest direction of traffic flow during the peak period. Conclusion: The HEFs and DEFs produced in this work can be used with a 95% confidence on the main streets of Gaza city.