Impact of Access Management on Traffic Performance in Poland

In this paper, characteristics of access control on Polish national two lane roads, rural and urban, and its evaluation on traffic performance is presented. In order to demonstrate the impact of access control and traffic performance, quantification of factors associated with the road and its surroundings was carried out. The study was based on empirical research and on developed regression models of speed. These models were used to evaluate the expected value of vehicle speeds on sections with different levels of access control. The study indicated a significant effect of the lack of access control on traffic performance. Conclusions based on the regression models were used to emphasize the most important issues caused by the absence of proper access management on existing roads. Moreover, proposals for possible methods to solve indicated problems were presented. As a result, the recommendations were formulated in relation to the following countermeasures, e.g., infrastructure investments, traffic, and access management, whose main goal is to improve traffic performance on Polish roads.