Abstract
High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes are widely used on freeways and play an important role in network design and management. Likewise, link performance functions serve as an essential tool for transport system analysis. This paper aims to support network analysis by providing a tailored link performance function for HOV lanes contiguous with general motor lanes on freeways. Specifically, real traffic data is used for model calibration and evaluation that was assembled from the Performance Measurement System (PeMS) maintained by the California Department of Transportation. Three alternative models for link performance functions of HOV lanes on freeways are developed, which take traffic performance on both HOV lanes and adjacent sets of general motor lanes into consideration. To calibrate the parameters of the models, linear regression is made through stepwise and enter methods and nonlinear regression is carried out using sequential quadratic programming. Statistical analysis together with an evaluation using real traffic data is conducted to evaluate the validity of the proposed models. Our results show that all the three proposed models for contiguous HOV lanes on freeways are statistically significant and perform better in representing real traffic condition with regards to a traditional link performance function, with one specific nonlinear model best supported.
Highlights
A High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lane is a motor vehicle lane exclusively allowed for HOV traffic to travel on, including buses, carpools and all other vehicles, which carry two or more persons
The primary objective of this study is to provide a tailored link performance function for contiguous HOV lanes of freeways
Real roadway data and traffic performance were collected from Performance Measurement System (PeMS) as maintained by Caltrans (CDoT 2014), and processed using ‘Highway Capacity Manual’ to determine values of the required variables, i.e. Free Flow Speed (FFS), capacity and equivalent car flow rate
Summary
A High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lane is a motor vehicle lane exclusively allowed for HOV traffic to travel on, including buses, carpools and all other vehicles, which carry two or more persons. According to ‘The 2005 Urban Mobility Report’, travel time on 19 surveyed lanes declined by 20% on average after HOV lanes had been employed, which obviously relieved the previous severe congestions on these lanes (Schrank, Lomax 2005). Link performance functions for high occupancy vehicle lanes of freeways. This paper focuses on contiguous HOV lanes, where no buffer separates HOV lanes and general motor lanes, allowing HOV traffic to enter and exit a HOV lane along its length It aims to propose a link performance function for contiguous HOV lanes on freeways, which is the primary contribution of this study. Last section summarizes outcomes, makes conclusions and presents future studies
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