Drivers’ lane utilization for UK motorways

Yousif, S; Al-Obaedi, JTS; Henson, RR

Abstract

Lane utilization represents how the rate of traffic flow is distributed among the available number of lanes in a given section. This utilization or split is affected by several factors including traffic flow rates as well as the presence and amount of heavy goods vehicles within the traffic. The importance of studying lane utilization comes from the fact that it is one of the input parameters for any traffic micro-simulation models which are increasingly being used in order to assess and suggest solutions for traffic problems.
This paper uses two sources of data to model lane utilization including "Motorway Incident detection and Automatic Signaling" MIDAS data and individual vehicles raw
data. The latter source of data is specifically used to model how heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) are distributed between motorway lanes as flow increases since MIDAS data
does not specify the proportions of HGVs by lanes. It is found that the developed models could represent real data in a more efficient way than other previous models.
The development of lane utilization models for HGV traffic will help in providing more realistic predictions of traffic behavior when represented by micro-simulation models
and in the assessment of such commercial vehicles using the lanes when it comes to pavement design.

Citation

Yousif, S., Al-Obaedi, J., & Henson, R. (2013). Drivers’ lane utilization for UK motorways. Journal of Transportation Engineering, 139(5), 441-447. https://doi.org/10.1061/%28ASCE%29TE.1943-5436.0000531

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 2, 2012
• Online Publication Date: Dec 4, 2012
• Publication Date: May 1, 2013
• Deposit Date: Dec 18, 2012
• Journal: Journal of Transportation Engineering
• Print ISSN: 0733-947X
• Publisher: Coasts, Oceans, Ports and Rivers Institute
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 139
• Issue: 5
• Pages: 441-447
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1061/%28ASCE%29TE.1943-5436.0000531
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)TE.1943-5436.0000531
• Related Public URLs: http://ascelibrary.org/journal/jtepbs