Field Study of Driver Exiting Behavior at Complex Interchanges

Abstract

A field study explored driver behavior at complex interchanges throughout the United States in order to better understand geometric, signing, and marking characteristics that influence driving behavior and lane selection. Two types of data were collected at 13 interchanges spanning four states: videos from fixed-location cameras, and videos from unmanned aerial vehicles. Findings from the study highlight common behavior as drivers negotiate complex interchanges. For each interchange studied, video was reduced to track vehicle paths throughout the study site. Although data were captured on both through and exiting traffic, the focus of this review was on the exiting vehicles. No major safety issues were observed through the study. One common finding across all sites was that exiting traffic was found to most commonly use the EXIT ONLY lane rather than the option lane. In addition, few common behaviors identified through the video show last-minute lane changes; drivers typically entered their target lane well upstream of the interchange.