Methods of dropping auxiliary lanes at freeway weaving segments

Auxiliary lanes connecting freeway entrance and exit ramps provide additional space for entering and exiting vehicles to change lanes. The method of dropping auxiliary lanes is critical in the design of freeway auxiliary lanes. This study investigates the performance of different methods of dropping auxiliary lanes. Case studies were conducted at two selected freeway segments with successive entrance or exit ramps in the City of Houston. Traffic simulation analysis results of these two case studies show that additional operational benefits can be achieved by extending an auxiliary lane beyond the freeway weaving segment. The study also found that if the weaving segment is followed by an entrance/exit ramp and this ramp has high traffic volume, it can be less operationally favorable to extend and terminate the auxiliary lane at this entrance/exit ramp location. Instead, dropping the auxiliary lane before this entrance/exit ramp represents a more operationally effective option.     

A comparison between PARAMICS and VISSIM in estimating automated field‐measured traffic conflicts at signalized intersections

The main objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between field‐measured conflicts and simulated conflicts estimated from microsimulation model (PARAMICS) using the surrogate safety assessment model. An urban signalized intersection was selected for analysis. Automated video‐based computer vision techniques were used to identify field conflicts. The applicability of a two‐step model calibration procedure applied to VISSIM in a recent study was investigated using PARAMICS. In the first calibration step, the PARAMICS model was calibrated to ensure that the simulation gives reasonable results of average delay times. The second calibration step used a genetic algorithm procedure to calibrate PARAMICS parameters to enhance the correlation between simulated and field‐measured conflicts. Finally, the results obtained from PARAMICS were compared with results obtained from VISSIM. The comparison included three aspects: (i) the car‐following model and safety‐related parameters; (ii) the correlation between simulated and field‐measured conflicts; and (iii) the conflict spatial distributions. The results show that the default simulation model parameters give poor correlation with the field‐measured data, and therefore, using simulation models without a proper calibration should be avoided. Overall, good correlation between field‐measured and simulated conflicts was obtained after calibration for both models, especially at higher time‐to‐collision (TTC) values. At TTC threshold of 1.5 s, PARAMICS overestimates the number of conflicts and VISSIM underestimates it. Both models overestimated the number of conflicts at TTC threshold of 3.00 s. There were major differences between field‐measured and simulated conflicts spatial distributions for both simulation models. This indicates that despite the good correlation obtained from the calibration process, both PARAMICS and VISSIM do not capture the actual conflict occurrence mechanism. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Traffic conflict models to evaluate the safety of signalized intersections at the cycle level

The safety of signalized intersections has often been evaluated at an aggregate level relating collisions to annual traffic volume and the geometric characteristics of the intersection. However, for many safety issues, it is essential to understand how changes in traffic parameters and signal control affect safety at the signal cycle level. This paper develops conflict-based safety performance functions (SPFs) for signalized intersections at the signal cycle level. Traffic video-data was recorded for six signalized intersections located in two cities in Canada. A video analysis procedure is proposed to collect rear-end conflicts and various traffic variables at each signal cycle from the recorded videos. The traffic variables include: traffic volume, maximum queue length, shock wave characteristics (e.g. shock wave speed and shock wave area), and the platoon ratio. The SPFs are developed using the generalized linear models (GLM) approach. The results show that all models have good fit and almost all the explanatory variables are statistically significant leading to better prediction of conflict occurrence beyond what can be expected from the traffic volume only. Furthermore, space-time conflict heat maps are developed to investigate the distribution of the traffic conflicts. The heat maps illustrate graphically the association between rear-end conflicts and various traffic parameters. The developed models can give insight about how changes in the signal cycle design affect the safety of signalized intersections. The overall goal is to use the developed models for the real-time optimization of signalized intersection safety by changing the signal design.