Abstract
Transport forms one of the primary needs in all categories of the population in modern society; it is of paramount concern for traffic engineers, transport planners, and policy makers to understand and evaluate the quality of service being provided by the transport facilities designed by them. This paper presents an investigation in profile geometric design and traffic flow operation on two-lane two-way highways and provides analyses that will help in a better understanding of traffic operation on these facilities to select the optimum profile configuration. The effects of influencing parameters consisting of grade, length of grade, traffic composition, and traffic volume are evaluated and finally a systematic procedure to evaluate flow rate under the base condition is presented. Finally, based on these achievements an algorithm is introduced to select optimum Finished Ground of profile view. Results show that the percentage of heavy vehicles has a contributing effect on traffic operation so that the optimum profile configuration is incredibly affected by this factor. Source data have been obtained from Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) as a pioneer document in respect of quantifying the concept of capacity for a transport facility.
Highlights
Two-way two-lane highways (TWTLHs) are a key element in the highway systems of most states and counties [1,2,3]
The objectives of this study are as follows: (i) to understand two-lane highways phenomenon, in order to enhance the quality of service provided by this kind of highways in rural environment especially for specific grades, (ii) to identify the effect of flow, profile geometric characteristics, and percent of heavy vehicle that significantly influence flow rate in mountainous areas on TWTLHs, (iii) to establish a methodology that can be used in conjunction with Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) to determine optimum profile view in TWTLH facilities
The result of the theory developed here is discussed to present a systematic method for Finished Ground (FG) optimization considering traffic operation
Summary
Two-way two-lane highways (TWTLHs) are a key element in the highway systems of most states and counties [1,2,3]. They are located in many different geographical areas and serve a wide variety of traffic functions [3]. The most widely accepted two-lane highway capacity and quality-of-service analysis procedures are those presented in the HCM published by the Transportation Research Board [1] This manual defines TWTLHs as undivided roadways with two lanes, one for use by traffic in each direction [3,4,5,6], where the opposite lane can be used for passing other vehicles going in the same direction [5, 6]. It is a major input to important decisions on public fund investments that are made at different stages of the highway life [4, 7, 8]
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