THE USE OF GPS AND GIS TO ANALYZE ACCESS NEAR INTERSECTIONS

The land adjacent to busy at-grade intersections on arterial streets is often the most attractive to commercial development. The goals of a commercial developer are generally to obtain the best land at the best price in order to build the greatest possible traffic generator, and to have ready access to the facility. These goals often come into conflict with the goals of a transportation agency to preserve capacity, flow and safety on the adjacent arterial streets. In determining reasonable access to a site, conventional wisdom holds that intersections (including access points) must not exist within one another's influence area. The influence area of an intersection, which is generally defined as perception-reaction distance plus deceleration distance plus storage length, may be greater than the available property frontage. To what lengths may transportation agencies go in requiring zero overlap in intersection influence areas? The first step in answering this, which is as much a legal question as an engineering question, is to determine the actual intersection influence area. Reliance upon generally accepted theoretical models may not be sufficient to prove reasonableness if a developer is able to show significant economic impacts from the regulation of access. This paper focuses upon a methodology for determining actual intersection influence area. This includes Global Positioning System (GPS) technology for velocity profiling to establish back of queue and influence area and Geographic Information System (GIS) technology for analyzing and displaying these data including geo-referenced imagery to demonstrate alternate access possibilities. The goals of the methodology are: to provide the information necessary to develop an objective spacing requirement that is appropriate to the unique circumstances and to provide a means to display and explain the conclusions reached.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • The symposium proceedings are available on CD-ROM.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Huffman, C
• Conference:
  • 2nd Urban Street Symposium: Uptown, Downtown, or Small Town: Designing Urban Streets That Work
  • Location: Anaheim, California , United States
  • Date: 2003-7-28 to 2003-7-30
• Publication Date: 2003-7

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: CD-ROM
• Features: Figures;
• Pagination: 9p
• Monograph Title: 2ND URBAN STREET SYMPOSIUM: UPTOWN, DOWNTOWN, OR SMALL TOWN: DESIGNING URBAN STREETS THAT WORK, JULY 28-30, 2003, ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Access control (Transportation); Alternatives analysis; Arterial highways; Commercial strips; Economic impacts; Geographic information systems; Global Positioning System; Intersections
• Subject Areas: Design; Economics; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; I21: Planning of Transport Infrastructure;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00989143
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Apr 4 2005 12:00AM