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    <title>Transport Research International Documentation (TRID)</title>
    <link>https://trid.trb.org/</link>
    <atom:link href="https://trid.trb.org/Record/RSS?s=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" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
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    <language>en-us</language>
    <copyright>Copyright © 2026. National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.</copyright>
    <docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs>
    <managingEditor>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</managingEditor>
    <webMaster>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</webMaster>
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      <title>Transport Research International Documentation (TRID)</title>
      <url>https://trid.trb.org/Images/PageHeader-wTitle.jpg</url>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/</link>
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    <item>
      <title>Application of Queuing Theory to a Toll Plaza-A Case Study</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1974530</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Queuing areas are the junctions involving vehicles waiting in lines and are characterized by an arrival pattern, a service facility arranged in a particular manner and service time. Since the maximum capacity of roads and service facility (i.e. number of booths in case of tolls) are fixed for certain period (i.e. design period), it is necessary to measure the efficiency of a facility. In case of toll booths on highways/freeways which are attractors of vehicles from different origin presumes the flow to be continuous and the vehicle inter-arrival random, adding to this is variability in demand and service (service time in toll booths), poses a problem in optimizing the service facility. In the present study, an existing toll plaza on a 4-lane divided highway having two-way movement (N–S and S–N) is evaluated based on queuing theory. Parameters like traffic volume, space-mean speed and time headway are expressed in 1 h intervals. The vehicle arrival patterns on both directions are postulated to be Poisson distributed and the observed data were fitted to the Poisson distribution. In case of N–S movement, observed frequency and theoretical frequency are found out to be equal indicating the postulated Poisson distribution to be the true population distribution. The use of chi-square test as an index of the goodness of fit for significance level 5% with 10° of freedom justifies the postulated Poisson distribution can be used for future analysis of vehicle arrivals in the respective direction. Finally, the utilization factor indicates a single booth in N–S direction to be under steady-state condition during the study period.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 04 Dec 2023 15:45:59 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1974530</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>Estimation of System delay Based Toll Equivalency Factors at Toll Plazas using Simulation</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2012085</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The service time and time headway of the vehicles are used to define the equivalency factor of different vehicle classes at the toll plaza. Both the service time and time headway are point measures and do not account for the system delay (time difference when a vehicle enters the queue and leaves the tollbooth) caused to the vehicle. The present study aims to quantify the system delay incurred to the vehicles at electronic toll collection (ETC) lanes under mixed traffic conditions using a microsimulation approach. Field data collected from one toll plaza located on a National Highway are used for simulation model generation. A new terminology called system delay-based toll equivalency factor (DTEF) is introduced to convert the different vehicle classes into equivalent passenger cars. The DTEF variation for different approach volumes and heavy commercial vehicle (HCV) compositions were checked at different ETC penetration levels. A total of 288 scenarios have been worked out, and simulation runs have been made for all such scenarios to obtain the DTEF values. The average DTEF value of HCV was obtained as 2.20. Further, it is found that with an increase in approach volume and HCV share in the traffic stream, the DTEF value increases. The outcome of the present study will be useful to field practitioners and engineers to determine the capacity in equivalent DTEF/hr and level of service of a toll plaza in terms of system delay.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 17 Nov 2022 10:15:17 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2012085</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Novel Approach for Design of Merging and Diverging Length at Toll Plazas: A Case Study</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1887570</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Traffic operations at toll plazas are influenced by the merging and diverging behavior of vehicles near the toll plaza in the flare area. Proper guidelines for the design of merging and diverging sections at toll plazas under mixed traffic conditions are not specified by the Indian Highway Capacity Manual, the Indian Road Congress, or the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. Thus, the present study attempts to develop design criteria for diverging and merging lengths. The field data were collected using the performance-box instrument at Ghoti toll plaza located at National Highway No. 60 in India, operating under mixed traffic conditions. The concept of discretization of speed profile is proposed and applied to segregate sections of the zone of influence into ten equal parts each of 50?m length. The statistical test shows that speed has a significant difference between the sections and also in between the different classes of vehicle. Results of the speed-distance plot show that the second-degree polynomial function is the best fit for zone of deceleration and power function for the zone of acceleration. The study revealed that, for 50?km/h approach speed, the minimum diverging and merging distances should be 125.67–308.98?m and 47.93–294.23?m, respectively. The proposed guidelines for merging and diverging length are useful for the design of the flare area and to improve operational efficiency and level of service at toll plazas operating under mixed traffic conditions.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 25 Oct 2021 14:11:06 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1887570</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Service time variability at manual operated tollbooths under mixed traffic environment: Towards level-of-service thresholds</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1844684</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Comprehending the variation in service time is essential for evaluating the capacity and level of service of the toll-plaza and developing policies for effective management of tollbooth operations. The present study analyzes the variation in service time using statistical distribution at manually operated toll plazas in India. For this purpose, traffic video data were collected for five toll-plazas in India. The vehicles approaching the toll plaza are divided broadly into seven different categories. The service time of different vehicle classes was extracted manually from the recorded video. The variation in service time for a total of 13 leader-follower pairs (small car as leader and follower) were modeled using statistical distributions. Based on the Chi-squared, Anderson Darling (AD), and Kolmogorov-Smirnoff (KS) test statistics, log-normal distribution was found as the best-fitted distribution among other potential statistical distributions. Investigations revealed that traffic composition, vehicular characteristics, variation in toll rates, drivers' and tollbooth operators’ behavior significantly influence the variability in service time. The important outcome of this study is the development of service time based level of service (LOS) criteria, which were developed using k-mean clustering technique. The developed LOS thresholds can be very useful to field engineers and practitioners for evaluating the existing performance of tollbooth and accordingly facilitating the development of appropriate policies for effective management of toll plaza operations.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 21 May 2021 10:54:09 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1844684</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>A Quick Method for Estimation of Level of Service at Manually Operated Tollbooths under Mixed Traffic Conditions</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1739821</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The present study attempted to develop a methodology to quickly estimate the level of service (LOS) at manually operated tollbooths where approaching traffic volume is mixed in nature in the same lane. Videography data collected at five toll plazas located in northern and western part of country. The vehicle approaching at toll plaza were divided into seven categories and headway data extracted from the video. The time headway is measured by taking the time difference of two consecutive vehicles at the same tollbooth. Field observation shows that there is a wide variation observed in headway for different vehicle type as well as within same vehicle type as leader and follower vehicle combinations. This may be due to varying toll rate, vehicle characteristics, drivers and tollbooth operators’ personal attributes. The present study developed tollbooth capacity estimation model by taking harmonic mean of traffic composition present at tollbooth with respect to the capacity achieved of respective vehicle class using headway method. Using approach volume and capacity estimated with the help of developed model in the volume to capacity (V/C) ratio is calculated and LOS thresholds are defined using clustering technique. The field observed V/C ratio ranges from 0.28 to 1.30. The study proposes six LOS ranges from LOS ‘A’ to ‘F’ at toll plaza based on V/C ratio. A threshold V/C ratio of less than 0.50 has been defined for LOS ‘A’ whereas more than 1.05 represents LOS ‘F’. The study outcome will be useful for toll plaza management and field engineers to quickly evaluate LOS at toll plaza with less efforts and cost.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 13 Oct 2020 09:13:26 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1739821</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Configuration research of toll square on freeways</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1663120</link>
      <description><![CDATA[In the basic sections of highways, the traffic flow is relatively constant, and the traffic capacity and the service level can generally meet the designed requirements. However, in the confluence zones, the traffic confluence among the vehicles will often lead to traffic congestion as the traffic volume increases, especially at the position where the vehicle from a tollbooth enters the main lane. Therefore, the paper uses the models of Queuing Theory and Cellular Automata and employs the MATLAB software to model the traffic situation near a tollbooth. This paper found the optimal number of tollbooths B corresponding to the number of lanes of travel L. Using the Alexander Computer Simulation Technology, the paper establishes the merging model of traffic flow in the confluence zone. On the basis of the existing toll plaza, the paper designed a gourd-shaped lane consolidation zone. Then, the Markov Model is used to analyse the designed merging method. This model proves the superiority of this design in parameters such as throughput, construction costs, traffic velocity, delay time, traffic density and more. Finally, the paper uses the Queuing Theory model to study the relationship between the traffic flow and the ratio of different toll types. For different traffic flows, the proportion between the number of MTCs and the number of ETCs is different. The model provides a reasonable suggestion for the construction of highway toll plazas. © 2017, Aracne Ed. All rights reserved.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 20 Dec 2019 16:24:13 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1663120</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Evaluation of the Service Level of a Highway Toll Plaza in Brazil Using Computational Simulation</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1495570</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The capacity and service level of highway tolls plazas is directly related to the service time at each toll booth, which depend on operational and human factors; in turn, these aspects influence and help strategic decision-making processes related to toll plaza management. Therefore, this study aims to assess the offered service levels at a Brazilian highway toll plaza, using computational modeling and simulation, and testing the influence of factors over manual customer service. Data collection offered information about the vehicle categories, the payment forms, work shifts, hours of the day and sex of the toll booth operator. It was also possible to collect information about the total number of vehicles, which went through each tool booth and break this information down into its composition. It can be concluded that the service level offered by the toll plaza on normal days is D, in which the vehicles remain in the system (waiting in line, plus processing time at booth) between 45 and 60 seconds. Other important information was extracted from the study upon which may serve as a basis for decision-making related to service, quality, traveling and driver safety provisions, aside from improving the operational system used by the toll road operator.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 20 Feb 2018 09:28:25 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1495570</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Lane Capacity Estimation and Level of Service Evaluation for Freeway Toll Plazas Based on Transaction Data</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1496731</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Lane capacity is an important indicator to reveal operation characteristics of toll plazas. The research is conducted with a case study in Anhui, China. Study periods are classified into weekdays, weekends and statutory holidays. Inter-vehicle time refers to the time difference of two consecutive departure times of vehicles at the toll plaza. Based on toll transaction data, the authors studied inter-vehicle time distributions of all lanes and developed a statistical method to estimate saturation inter-vehicle times. Thus, lane capacity can be calculated by the inverse of saturation inter-vehicle time. Passenger-car Equivalents (PCE) are proposed to analyze trucks and cars in a unified framework. The authors classified vehicle pairs into Car-Car (C-C), Car-Truck (C-T), Truck-Car (T-C) and Truck-Truck (T-T), and the PCE of C-T, T-C and T-T are calculated by dividing their saturation inter-vehicle times by the saturation inter-vehicle time of C-C. Furthermore, the authors evaluated the level of service (LOS) of toll lanes with Volume-to-Capacity (V/C) ratios and average queue length. Based on LOS results, the authors can further give recommendations to save operation costs and optimize space utilization of the toll plaza area. For the studied toll plaza, the V/C ratio of one of the two Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) lanes is not larger than 0.02 during all studied periods, which indicates that one ETC lane could satisfy the current upstream arrival demand. Thus, reducing a ETC lane helps to save costs in the short term. However, increasing the proportion of vehicles using ETC system may be recommended in the long run.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 08 Feb 2018 09:41:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1496731</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Analysis of Level of Service of Toll Lane Allocation of Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1314590</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge is a world-class sea channel, and this research analyzed the level of service and capacity of the toll plaza of this bridge. The delay and queue length under two different charging methods -- namely, Manual Toll Collection (MTC) and Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) -- in different volume forecast years were analyzed with a traffic simulation method. Based on the operation indicators, the levels of service in different traffic demands of the toll plaza were evaluated. Furthermore, the capacities of the toll lane combinations of MTC and ETC were calculated using theoretical formulas, and toll lane allocation under different traffic demands was recommended. This research can provide a useful reference to management for decision making.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 31 Jul 2014 09:01:52 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1314590</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Modelling toll plazas using queue theory</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1279427</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This study aims to increase the operational knowledge of the toll plazas to maximize their performance, using the queuing theory. First, the authors describe the theory of queues and its appropriateness to the collection booths. The authors defined the concept of level of service for toll plazas with their performance standards for waiting time in queue and average queue length. It is shown a number of assumptions (input variables, criteria for the traffic division, and information output) and develops a model called Car Motion. It is verified the consistency of queuing theory to simulate the toll plaza, through calibration of the model, with error in the order of 11%. Analyses are made in five types of operational scenarios. It is proven the exponential relationship between the volume of traffic and waiting time in queue. The performance of exclusively manual booth is similar to mixed booth (manual and electronic). There is a linear relationship between increasing percentage of heavy vehicles and toll capacity reduction. The increasing of the percentage of electronic payments to 41% can reduce 33% the number of booths manuals, representing large cost savings. Finally, the use of 50% of prepaid ticket payments achieves a 38% gain in capacity.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 23 Dec 2013 11:06:53 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1279427</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>An investigation of toll plaza capacity and level of service</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1177452</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This study was undertaken to accomplish two objectives pertinent to traffic characteristics at toll plaza areas: (1) to develop a methodology for evaluating the capacity of a toll plaza, and (2) to establish level-of- service criteria for toll area traffic. Traffic data at the four toll plazas of Virginia's Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike were collected using synchronized video cameras.  The capacity of a toll booth was found to range from 600 to 750 passenger cars per hour, depending on the type of toll collection.  It was concluded that average density can be used as a criterion for defining levels of service for toll plaza areas.  Average densities of the toll plaza areas were also found to be highly correlated to v/c ratios. Simulation techniques were employed with animation, which gave the viewers visual perceptions directly in addition to analytic solutions.  Examples of operational analysis and planning analysis were presented to demonstrate the application. As a result of this study, it was recommended that the density criterion be utilized for defining levels of service at toll plaza areas, and that it be incorporated into a future edition of the Highway Capacity Manual.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 24 Aug 2012 01:29:39 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1177452</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>A conceptual framework for evaluating toll facilities capacity</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1169121</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Capacity and level of service (LOS) thresholds of toll facilities would provide a standard tool for evaluating different design alternatives, and assessing the efficiency of toll plaza operation strategies.  The Highway Capacity Manual lacks information on capacity and LOS of toll facilities. The objective of this paper is to briefly review factors affecting capacity of toll facilities and to put forward a framework for evaluating the performance of toll plazas.  The analysis includes three operational strategies of toll plazas: annual operation, automatic gate lift and the use of automatic vehicle identification (AVI) technologies.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 23 Aug 2012 20:08:34 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1169121</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Level of Service Method for Brazilian Toll Plazas</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1136406</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This paper proposes a method for analyzing level of service of toll plazas. Toll plazas scenarios were developed and evaluated through a qualitative research by toll plaza users from different Brazilian states, and by technical staff from regulating agencies and from the concessionaires responsible for toll plazas operation. The results indicate that queue length at toll booths has a strong influence on the quality of service of toll plazas as perceived by all groups. A level of service classification for toll plazas is proposed, relating the quality perceived by the different groups to the average queue length at toll booths.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 11 Apr 2012 11:11:07 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1136406</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Simple Approach to Estimating Changes in Toll Plaza Delays</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/847892</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Toll plazas are important components of the road infrastructure, especially on urban highways. They can have adverse capacity and safety impacts on traffic. However, the plazas serve an important purpose, namely, revenue generation for highway agencies. Various traffic management and electronic toll collection strategies, including regular and high-speed E-ZPass and time-of-day pricing, are also implemented as part of toll plaza operations to change traffic supply and demand characteristics and improve networkwide level of service. In recent years, because of the increasing need to better assess the impact of toll plazas combined with these various traffic management strategies, customized or off-the-shelf microsimulation and macrosimulation models of toll plazas have been developed. This study reviews the literature on both approaches. Then a customized microscopic toll plaza model developed as an integrated part of PARAMICS microsimulation is compared with a relatively simple macroscopic model. This kind of macroscopic model, which can estimate toll plaza delays, is needed because it is extremely difficult and expensive to calibrate and implement microsimulation models when projects have severe budget and time constraints. Several New Jersey Turnpike toll plazas that were well validated and calibrated are used in the comparison. A sensitivity analysis is conducted with various other toll plazas to ensure the validity of the macroscopic model, especially for cases in which demand is reduced because of a real-time traffic management strategy. Results indicate that the macroscopic method is comparable (within average error 2.6% to 6.4%) with the PARAMICS model when sufficient care is taken in selecting macroscopic and microscopic model parameters consistently.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 21 May 2008 07:05:54 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/847892</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Toll plaza capacity and level of service</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/853895</link>
      <description><![CDATA[]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:42:15 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/853895</guid>
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