LANE-CHANGING IN MULTILANE FREEWAY TRAFFIC
A SERIES OF ANALYSES ARE PRESENTED INDICATING THAT LANE- CHANGING IN MULTILANE FREEWAY TRAFFIC MAY BE EFFECTIVELY DESCRIBED AS A RANDOM PROCESS. ASSUMING FIRST THAT LANE- CHANGING MAY BE TREATED AS AN ISOLATED, INDEPENDENT EVENT WITHIN THE TRAFFIC STREAM, IT IS SHOWN THAT THE NUMBER OF LANE CHANGES BETWEEN TWO LANES WITHIN A LENGTH OF FREEWAY AND A TIME SPAN MAY BE ESTIMATED AS THE OUTCOME OF A SIMPLE POISSON PROCESS. EMPIRICAL DATA ARE PRESENTED TO SHOW THAT THE VALUE OF THE AVERAGE NUMBER OF LANE CHANGES VARIES SYSTEMATICALLY WITH BOTH TRAFFIC SPEED AND TRAFFIC VOLUME, AND WITH PROXIMITY TO ENTRANCE AND EXIT RAMPS. FURTHER, THE ASSUMPTION OF RANDOMNESS IS SHOWN TO BREAK DOWN DURING MEDIUM HEAVY FLOW PERIODS (FLOWS EQUIVALENT TO 62 TO 87 VEH/ MIN/3 LANES) AND AT POINTS IMMEDIATELY DOWNSTREAM FROM FREEWAY ENTRANCE RAMPS. IT IS SIMILARLY SHOWN THAT THE PATTERN OF LANE CHANGES WITH THE FREEWAY SECTION OF SPECIFIED LENGTH MAY BE MODELED AS A FINITE MARKOV PROCESS. A SIMPLE MARKOVIAN MODEL BASED ON THIS STRUCTURE IS CALIBRATED FROM FIELD DATA COLLECTED ON A 6-LANE FREEWAY IN CHICAGO, AND EXTENDED TO COVER THE SITUATIONS OF LANE- CHANGING IN THE VICINITY OF FREEWAY ENTRANCE AND EXIT RAMPS AND WITHIN A COMPLEX WEAVING OBSERVED MANEUVER PATTERN. /ARTICLE/
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Supplemental Notes:
- Paper sponsored by Committee on Freeway Operations. Distribution, posting, or copying of this PDF is strictly prohibited without written permission of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences. Unless otherwise indicated, all materials in this PDF are copyrighted by the National Academy of Sciences. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved
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Authors:
- Worrall, R D
- Bullen, A G
- Gur, Y
- Publication Date: 1969
Media Info
- Media Type: Print
- Pagination: p 160
- Monograph Title: Freeway traffic characteristics and control
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Serial:
- Highway Research Record
- Issue Number: 279
- Publisher: Highway Research Board
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Finite element method; Freeways; Interchange ramps; Mathematical models; Multilane highways; Poisson ratio; Simulation; Stochastic processes; Time; Traffic lanes; Traffic speed; Traffic volume; Weaving traffic
- Uncontrolled Terms: Change
- Old TRIS Terms: Finite elements; Freeway entrances and exits; Poissons ratio
- Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 00225550
- Record Type: Publication
- Report/Paper Numbers: Paper No 1
- Files: TRIS, TRB
- Created Date: Oct 21 1994 12:00AM