Perceived Level of Service, Driver, and Traffic Characteristics: Piecewise Linear Model
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering
Volume 136, Issue 10
Abstract
The objective of this research is the analysis of perceived highway level of service in relation to drivers’ personal characteristics and traffic conditions. A field survey was carried out for that purpose, in which drivers were asked to assess the traffic conditions experienced on a freeway segment, just after having actually driven along this segment. At the same time, traffic counts were taking place. Exploratory analysis revealed a large dispersion in drivers’ assessment of level of service for each volume-to-capacity (v/c) value, especially at moderate traffic conditions. Furthermore, the effect of driver’s age, gender, driving experience, familiarity with the road, vehicle capacity, and v/c on perceived level of service was examined by means of nonparametric statistical tests. It was found that, in this sample, only traffic conditions affected drivers’ assessment of level of service. Perceived level of service was then modeled against v/c by means of a piecewise linear regression technique for three scenarios, covering different types of drivers with respect to their tolerance of congestion. The results confirm that the relationship between perceived level of service and traffic conditions has a piecewise linear form with significant differences in slopes and breakpoints. Moreover, they suggest that drivers perceive no more than two or three levels of traffic conditions. More specifically, only low-tolerance drivers appear to distinguish level of service A from B and only high-tolerance drivers appear to distinguish level of service D from E. On the contrary, an impressive reduction of perceived level of service occurs within the v/c interval of 0.55–0.70 in all scenarios. These findings are further discussed in relation to their accordance with the highway capacity manual approach for level of service and its possible adjustments.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
Bonsall, P., Beale, J., Paulley, N., and Pedler, A. (2005). “The differing perspectives of road users and service providers.” Transp. Policy, 12(4), 334–344.
Choocharukul, K., Sinha, K. C., and Mannering, F. L. (2004). “User perceptions and engineering definitions of highway level of service: An exploratory statistical comparison.” Transp. Res., Part A: Policy Pract., 38, 677–689.
Flannery, A., McLeod, D., and Pedersen, N. J. (2006). “Customer-based measures of level of service.” ITE J., 76(5), 17–21.
Galin, D. (1983). “Applications of the citizen participation approach to the quality of service-empirical findings.” Traffic Eng. Control, 24(2), 77.
Hall, F. L. (1997). “Traffic stream characteristics.” Revised monograph on traffic flow theory, Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C.
Hinkley, D. (1971). “Inference in two-phase regression.” J. Am. Stat. Assoc., 66, 736–743.
Hostovsky, C., Wakefield, S., and Hall, F. L. (2004). “Freeway users’ perceptions of quality of service: Comparison of three groups.” Transp. Res. Rec.. 1883, 150–157.
Ishibashi, Y., Kouchi, A., and Sakai, T. (2006). “Analysis of relationships between drivers’ satisfaction with traffic characteristics and service levels of expressways.” Proc., 5th Int. Symp. on Highway Capacity and Quality of Service, Japan Society of Traffic Engineers, Yokohama, Japan, 123–137.
Kita, H. (2000). “Level-of-service measure of road traffic based on the driver’s perception.” Proc., 4th Int. Symp. on Highway Capacity, Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C., 53–62.
Landis, B. W., Vattikuti, V. R., and Brannick, M. T. (1997). “Real-time human perceptions: Toward a bicycle level of service.” Transportation Research Record 1578, Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C., 119–126.
Landis, B. W., Vattikuti, V. R., Ottenberg R. M., McLeod D. S., and Guttenplan, M. (2001). “Modeling the roadside walking environment: A pedestrian level of service.” Transportation Research Record No. 1773, Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C.
Lee, D., Kim, T., and Pietrucha, M. T. (2007). “Incorporation of transportation user perception into evaluation of service quality of signalized intersections.” Transportation Research Record 2027, Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C., 9–18.
Lee, J. Y. S., Goh, P. K., and Lam, W. H. K. (2005). “New level-of-service standard for signalized crosswalks with bidirectional pedestrian flows.” J. Transp. Eng., 131(12), 957–960.
Madanat, S. M., Cassidy, M. J., and Wan Ibrahim, W. H. (1994). “Methodology for determining level of service categories using attitudinal data.” Transportation Research Record 1457, Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C., 59–62.
Muggeo, V. (2003). “Estimating regression models with unknown break-points.” Stat. Med., 22, 3055–3071.
Pécheux, K. K., Flannery, A., Wochinger, K., Rephlo, J., and Lappin, J. (2004). “Automobile drivers’ perceptions of service quality on urban streets.” Transportation Research Record 1883, Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C., 167–175.
Pécheux, K. K., Pietrucha, M. T., and Jovanis, P. P. (2000). “User perception of level of service at signalized intersections: Methodological issues.” Proc., 4th Int. Symp. on Highway Capacity, Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C., 322–335.
R Development Core Team (RDCT). (2009). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria, ⟨http://www.R-project.org⟩ (April 10, 2009).
Tan, D., Wang, W., Lu, J., and Bian, Y. (2007). “Research on methods of assessing pedestrian level of service for sidewalk.” Journal of Transportation Systems Engineering and Information Technology, 7(5), 74–79.
Tarko, A. P. (2006). “Uncertainty in predicting quality of traffic—The past work and the present issues.” Proc., 5th Int. Symp. on Highway Capacity and Quality of Service, Japan Society of Traffic Engineers, Yokohama, Japan, 105–114.
Transportation Research Board (TRB). (2000). Highway capacity manual, National Research Council, Washington, D.C.
Washburn, S. S., and Kirschner, D. S. (2006). “Rural freeway level of service based on traveler perception.” Transportation Research Record No. 1988, Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C., 31–37.
Washburn, S. S., Ramlackhan, K., and McLeod, D. S. (2004). “Quality-of-service perceptions by rural freeway travelers: Exploratory analysis.” Transportation Research Record No. 1883, Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C., 132–139.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Transportation Engineering
Volume 136 • Issue 10 • October 2010
Pages: 887 - 894
Copyright
© 2010 ASCE.
History
Received: Apr 15, 2009
Accepted: Mar 16, 2010
Published online: Mar 18, 2010
Published in print: Oct 2010
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.