Citation

Li T, Ma J, Hale DK. Transp. Lett. 2020; 12(4): 233-245.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Maney Publishing, Publisher Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/19427867.2019.1584347

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

High-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes have been widely deployed in freeways with high demands and traffic congestion. This paper discusses how an alternative design with the HOV lane on the right side of the freeway could effectively mitigate congestion problems at freeway merge, diverge, and weaving areas as compared with the benchmark design of HOV lanes on the left. Simulation experiments show that the alternative design will result in a reduction in average delay by 5% to 10% and increase in throughput by 10% to 30% for all traffic. While the alternative design generally improves performance for the general purpose (GP) lanes, it will degrade HOV lane performance. Nonetheless, HOV lane vehicles enjoy a higher level of service than GP lane vehicles under the same background settings. The study suggests that it is practical to implement the alternative design on freeways, especially for areas with low HOV traffic volumes.

Language: en

Keywords

congestion reduction; diverge and weaving; freeway bottlenecks; High-Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes; merge; traffic simulation