What is a Passenger Car Equivalent (PCE)?
Published
January 5, 2023
Passenger Car Equivalent (PCE) or passenger car unit (PCU) is the number of passenger cars that will result in the same operational conditions as a single heavy vehicle of a particular type under identical roadway, traffic, and control conditions.
PCE factors are used to convert counts of heavy vehicles into counts of passenger cars such that a mixed flow of heavy and light vehicles is converted to an equivalent traffic stream consisting entirely of passenger cars.