Daytime and Nighttime Following Behavior on Monitored Two-Lane Rural Road
This paper investigates the effect of lighting conditions on speed, following and passing on two-lane rural roads. Nighttime driving, which represents around 20 % of the total traffic volume, concentrates a significant proportion of crashes. The present study analyzes speed, time headways and passing maneuvers on a 7 km road segment. Trajectories of 316 vehicles (200 daytime and 116 nighttime) were observed and characterized thanks to 6 video surveillance cameras. The analysis found that there were no significant differences in free flow speeds between both lighting conditions. Daytime headways between impeded vehicles decreased along the first 4.2 km no-passing zone. Up to 15% of followers had a headway under 1 s with the lead vehicle at the end of the no-passing zone. However, during night, this proportion was reduced to the half and the headways did not decreased significantly. During daytime, two passing zones located in the last 2.8 km revealed an increase in time headways, showing the effect of passing maneuvers in the reduction of platoons. In contrast, nighttime headways decreased and percent of following vehicles increased. This result agrees with a lower passing frequency observed during night in the two passing zones. These results indicate that traffic density at highways with higher traffic volumes may be lower during night, due to the higher spacing between platooned vehicles and the more conservative passing decisions. This may cause a reduction in capacity or levels of service.
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Supplemental Notes:
- This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AHB65-1 Operational Effects of Geometrics - Special Paper Review Coordination.
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Corporate Authors:
500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC United States 20001 -
Authors:
- Llorca, Carlos
- Moreno, Ana Tsui
- Valencia-Alaix, Victor G
- García, Alfredo
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Conference:
- Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting
- Location: Washington DC
- Date: 2014-1-12 to 2014-1-16
- Date: 2014
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Digital/other
- Features: Figures; References;
- Pagination: 18p
- Monograph Title: TRB 93rd Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Car following; Free flow speeds; Headways; Lighting; Nighttime crashes; Passing; Traffic platooning
- Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning; I73: Traffic Control;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01517549
- Record Type: Publication
- Report/Paper Numbers: 14-1942
- Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
- Created Date: Mar 10 2014 9:24AM