Role of Freeway Ramp Geometry on Driver Acceleration and Merging Behavior
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Volume 150, Issue 8
Abstract
Design guidelines for freeway ramp entrances are based on speed and acceleration data collected before 1950. This study investigated driver behavior over the entire freeway entrance area, including the ramp, the acceleration speed-change lane (SCL), and the freeway right lane (FRL). Video-based trajectory and speed profile data were collected using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and were used for qualitative and quantitative analysis. General trends of the relationships between driver behavior measures and geometric characteristics of entrance ramp terminals were investigated under different traffic and design conditions. Results showed that vehicles tended to merge onto the freeway at relatively low speeds such that the difference between their mean speed at merging and that of FRL vehicles was statistically significant. Results also confirmed that SCL drivers tended to start acceleration after they passed the middle of the ramp controlling curve. Regression models were developed for predicting driver-vehicle behavior on SCLs and on-ramp curves using traditional regression for each parameter separately and simultaneous modeling using structural equation modeling. An example application is presented to demonstrate the use of the developed models in reliability analysis of entrance ramps, which can be used to establish probabilistic road design guidelines.
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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
The authors wish to acknowledge Taibah University, Saudi Arabia, for financially supporting this research. The authors also thank Transoft Solutions for providing access to their platform to process the UAV videos.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Volume 150 • Issue 8 • August 2024
Copyright
© 2024 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Feb 19, 2024
Accepted: Mar 29, 2024
Published online: Jun 13, 2024
Published in print: Aug 1, 2024
Discussion open until: Nov 13, 2024
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Design (by type)
- Driver behavior
- Engineering fundamentals
- Geometrics
- Highway and road design
- Highway and road management
- Highway transportation
- Highways and roads
- Infrastructure
- Models (by type)
- Ramps (road)
- Structural behavior
- Structural engineering
- Structural models
- Traffic engineering
- Transportation engineering
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