Vehicle’s lateral placement on horizontal curves: A literature review

Abstract

The placement of vehicle within a curve is a crucial factor with regards to safety as it influences its frictional requirement. The lateral placement of vehicle can be defined as the lateral distance from the centreline or outer edge of the road to the front tire of the vehicle. Limited study has been documented in the literature regarding this crucial element that affects the friction demand. Studies have been conducted to measure the effectiveness of surface treatments that take vehicle placement as a factor for safety analysis, but a lesser number of studies have concentrated on developing lane placement as a statistical model and have relied on statistical tests for comparability. This paper begins with an overview of prior research on the lateral position in conjunction with speed, followed by the different data collecting methodologies and equipment. Later part of the paper discusses the impact of lateral placement and the different modelling approaches proposed in the past. The findings reveal that there is a need to study the lateral positioning of vehicles on curves in greater detail so that better prediction models can be developed. A wide range of considerations including continuous evaluation along different categories of curves with different vehicle types and roadside configurations are needed to enhanced the existing models.