Development of Conflicting Flow Model for Unsignalized Intersections: Tier-II Cities of India

India's highways and urban streets have a highly diverse traffic pattern, with noticeable variations in vehicle dimensions and speed characteristics. It is common for drivers to disregard traffic movement priority laws and breach lane discipline at unsignalized intersections. Drivers often become more impatient and ignore competing traffic as they pass unsignalized crossings; pedestrian crossing and bicycle movement pose additional anxieties. These considerations significantly affect the efficiency and capacity of traffic navigation, rendering the situation at unsignalized intersections exceedingly intricate. Data were gathered at prominent three-legged and four-legged unsignalized intersections in tier-II cities, likewise Ranchi, Dhanbad city in Jharkhand state, and Patna city in Bihar state, during peak hours on five consecutive weekdays in India using the video-graphic technique. The vehicles being evaluated were classified into seven distinct categories: two-wheelers (2W), three-wheelers (3W), slow-moving three-wheelers (SM3W), standard cars (SC), large cars (LC), mini commercial vans (MCV), and heavy vehicles (HV). Field video recordings provide the percentage distribution of different maneuvers executed by different cars at an unsignalized crossroads. In the present study, the fundamental equations for evaluating the conflicting volumes for different movements in unsignalized intersections were certainly revised for India's tier-II cities. The modified equations obtained in the study can be implemented by traffic engineers and practitioners to assess the capacity of unsignalized intersections in heterogeneous traffic scenarios.