Risk-Based Priority Setting for Large-Scale Access Management Programs with Uncertain Mobility Benefits and Costs
Publication: ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems, Part A: Civil Engineering
Volume 7, Issue 1
Abstract
Access management is a set of strategies used by transportation planners to address mobility concerns without the need for major highway expansions. Although access management can significantly improve highway mobility, congestion, and safety, limited resources prevent transportation agencies from managing each access point within their network. Therefore, there is a need for a macrolevel framework that helps these agencies in prioritizing their access management needs. This research contributes to the transportation planning field by developing a two-phase methodology that prioritizes competing needs for access management across a large network of highways. The first phase, filtering, evaluates the economic efficiency of access management projects from a travel time improvement perspective. This phase extends current risk–cost–benefit analysis methods, which integrate risk analysis and cost–benefit analysis with data uncertainties. The second phase, classification, identifies a set of site-specific qualitative and quantitative factors that can affect the travel time of road users. These factors are used to set priorities for access management projects. The developed methodology was demonstrated by applying it to thousands of access points located on four major US routes. The results are of interest to transportation planners, safety managers, and state and local municipalities.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
This effort was supported in part by the Virginia Department of Transportation, the Virginia Transportation Research Council, the US National Science Foundation (NSF CRISP2 #1541165), Commonwealth Center for Advanced Logistics Systems (CCALS), and the Deanship of Scientific Research at King Saud University, Saudi Arabia.
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Received: Feb 25, 2020
Accepted: Jul 9, 2020
Published online: Oct 16, 2020
Published in print: Mar 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Mar 16, 2021
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