A Two-Step Microscopic Traffic Safety Evaluation Model of Reserved-Lane Facilities: A Highway Bus on Shoulder Case Study
When traffic operations of reserved-lane facilities are not appropriately accounted for, there is a potential for the occurrence of traffic safety issues. One problem that typically has to be addressed is related to increasing traffic interactions within merging/weaving section. That is, depending on the geometric alignment, the users of reserved lanes may be exposed to an increased number of conflicts with the vehicles on the adjacent lanes due to merging/diverging and crossing maneuvers. In this study, a two-step microscopic safety evaluation methodology was applied to a Bus-on-Shoulder (BoS) facility. This method uses vehicular interactions generated from VISSIM and into the Surrogate Safety Assessment Model (SSAM). In order to improve operation and safety performance, this study investigated different access management solutions to existing geometric alignment. Another contribution of this study is the introduction of a new conflict classification and calibration method using a binary matrix principle. The proposed method provides a more accurate estimation of conflicts classification using the existing SSAM software. Real-world traffic data was collected and used to calibrate a traffic simulation and safety analysis model of the study area. The analysis procedure used in this study is generally independent of the type of geometric alignment so that it can be deployed to other similar reserved-lane facilities. The results show that traffic operations along the corridor can be significantly improved if the geometric alignment limits interaction opportunities between vehicles on adjacent lanes. The case study tested showed that a 50-meter yield-merging section at the end of the BoS segment reduces significantly the interactions between vehicles in the adjacent lanes.
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Supplemental Notes:
- This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AHB65 Standing Committee on Operational Effects of Geometrics. Alternate title: Two-Step Microscopic Traffic Safety Evaluation Model of Reserved-Lane Facilities: Highway Bus on Shoulder Case Study
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Corporate Authors:
500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC United States 20001 -
Authors:
- Tao, Huizhu
- Alecsandru, Ciprian
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Conference:
- Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting
- Location: Washington DC, United States
- Date: 2016-1-10 to 2016-1-14
- Date: 2016
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Digital/other
- Features: Figures; References; Tables;
- Pagination: 20p
- Monograph Title: TRB 95th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Bus transit operations; Calibration; Express lanes; Methodology; Road shoulders; Traffic conflicts; Weaving sections
- Identifier Terms: VISSIM (Computer model)
- Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning; I73: Traffic Control;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01592093
- Record Type: Publication
- Report/Paper Numbers: 16-2181
- Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
- Created Date: Feb 29 2016 4:56PM