Impact of Road Environment on Drivers’ Preference to Merging Location Selection in Freeway Work Zone Merging Areas

Abstract

In view of the compulsory merging behavior and complex driving environment in freeway work zones, the factors influencing drivers’ merging behavior need to be focused on the given road environment. Realizing the need to mitigate the impact of such a challenging scenario, this study aims to explore the impact of road environment on drivers’ merging location selection in freeway work zone merging areas. The survey data for modelling were collected through questionnaires survey based on the stated preference (SP) method. The logistics regression model was utilized to extract the significant factors influencing merging location selection. The results of fitting effect analysis show that the developed logistics regression models provide a good fit for the survey data. The road conditions and speed limit strategies are the significant factors affecting the drivers’ preference to merging location selection in upstream transition area. The road conditions, traffic environment conditions, speed conditions, and speed limit strategies are the prominent influencing factors to the latter part of advance warning area. It is a comprehensive analysis to consider the influence of road environment on merging location selection from the perspective of drivers, which is expected to support the merging control strategy and avoid the occurrence of traffic crash in work zones.