Observations of traffic behaviour from UK motorway roadworks sections with narrow lanes

Nassrullah, Z; Yousif, S; Norgate, SH

Abstract

In recent years, implementation of narrow lanes is frequently used as a temporary traffic management scheme (TTMS) on UK motorway roadwork sections. The rationale is to free up carriageway space, especially for sites with high traffic demands needing repairs. What remains to be determined is the impact of this work on driving behaviours. This is important due to the need to manage traffic operational turbulence which could affect the capacity and safety levels in roadwork sections. Using camcorders from overhead bridges, obseravtions were made which uncovered two discernible patterns of driving behaviour where narrow lanes are implemented at roadworks, especially when heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) are present: (i) “avoiding” passing/overtaking HGVs travelling in the adjacent lanes and (ii) lane “repositioning” while passing/overtaking. Of the 376 vehicles (including 165 HGVs) taken from one site, almost half of the passenger car drivers (including small vans) who were following a HGV on the adjacent lanes were avoiding passing that HGV. While nearly three quarters of the observed passenger cars (based on a sample of 218 vehicles including 107 HGVs), the passenger car drivers tried to position their vehicles as far away as possible, laterally, from the adjacent HGV while passing/overtaking that HGV in order to widen the lateral gap between their vehicles and the HGV. This resulted in driving too close to the edge of the road markings of their current lane away from the HGV. Therefore, this paper aims to report on the “avoiding” and lane “repositioning” behaviours to help inform those using narrow lanes as a TTMS and make them aware of these behaviours (especially on motorway sections carrying high percentage of HGVs).

Citation

Nassrullah, Z., Yousif, S., & Norgate, S. (2016, January). Observations of traffic behaviour from UK motorway roadworks sections with narrow lanes. Presented at UTSG, Bristol, UK

• Presentation Conference Type: Other
• Conference Name: UTSG
• Conference Location: Bristol, UK
• Start Date: Jan 1, 2016
• Deposit Date: Jul 26, 2016
• Additional Information: Event Type : Conference