This study presents an empirical investigation into the use of a new measure, percent impeded, for estimating performance on two-lane highways. Percent impeded is a point estimate of the percentage of vehicles that are impeded by slower vehicles in the traffic stream due to platooning, a common phenomenon on two-lane, two-way highways. This point measure, by definition, is closest in concept to percent-time-spent-following, a spatial measure of performance on two-lane highways that is used in the current practice yet is impractical to measure in the field. Field data were collected from two two-lane highway study sites with passing lanes in the state of Montana. Performance was examined at a single location upstream and multiple locations downstream of the passing lane at each study site. As a reference, the analyses utilized some of the currently used or suggested performance measures on two-lane highways. Overall, the percent impeded patterns and trends were consistent with the mechanism of platoon break-up and formation in the vicinity of passing lanes, a concept that is well-documented in the literature. Further, study results suggest that percent impeded has more logical and consistent sensitivity to platooning variables compared with other performance measures investigated by this study.
Estimating Performance on Two-Lane Highways
Case Study Validation of a New Methodology
Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board
Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board ; 2173 , 1 ; 72-79
2010-01-01
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
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