Lateral position of traffic negotiating horizontal bends

Abstract

The lateral position of vehicles at horizontal curves and roundabout circles has been studied, and it has been observed that drivers tend to straighten their travel path as much as possible when negotiating these bends in a corner-cutting fashion. In addition to skid resistance loss, this behaviour results in the early scuffing and removal of road markings. Preliminary data were collected in Northern Ireland at eight different sites over 15 lanes in total. It was found that the expected geometrical location of the wheel path is not the same as the actual observed location at certain sections of highways. On horizontal curves, the most travelled wheel path is shifted towards the convex side of the curve, and this shift increases with decreasing radius, such as at roundabouts, where it reaches a maximum displacement. This shift was about 140 cm in the outer circles of roundabouts and about 60 cm in the inner circles. For horizontal curves the figure was in the region of 30–40 cm.

Effect of Road Surface Deformations on Lateral Lane Utilization and Longitudinal Driving Behaviours

“…Each vehicle is directly influenced by the movement of vehicle in front and at the back. Based on this theory, lateral positions of vehicles on lanes are expected to exhibit normal distribution (Gunay 2001(Gunay , 2008(Gunay , 2009Timm, Priest 2005;Gunay, Woodward 2007;Yousif et al 2013). However, in some unexpected traffic situations, lane-based driving discipline is weak.…”

Modeling drivers’ naturalistic driving behavior on rural two-lane curves

“…Most of the lateral position studies were measured with roadside equipment. Curve cutting was found to be a frequent behavior observed in several studies (Gunay et al, 2007;Verkehrssicherheit, 1980;Spacek, 2005). The speeds over speed limits also had negative impact on drivers' lane keeping behavior (Hallmark et al, 2012).…”

“…Most of them observed curve cutting behavior at mid-point of a curve. Six patterns of curve trajectories were identified in those studies (Abele, 2011;Bertola, 2012;Charlton, 2007;Gunay, 2007;Hallmark, 2012;Reymond, 2001;Spacek, 2005;Suh, 2006;Taylor, 2005). Several low-cost countermeasures were proposed to help drivers keep their lateral positions, such as raised pavement marking, rumble strips, dynamics curve warning systems, and chevrons (Cheung, 2010;McGee, 2006).…”

“…Hallmark et al (2012) measured the vehicle lateral positions using Z configuration road tubes on rural curves. A statistically significant relationship was found between vehicle speeds over posted speed limits and lane deviations Gunay et al (2007). used roadside camera to study the distribution of wheel positions on curves and found the vehicles tended to "cut" the curve at midpoint of the curves.…”

Development of rural curve driving models using lateral placement and prediction of lane departures using the SHRP 2 naturalistic driving data

“…One component of this model was path selection which assumes the drivers desired path profile is one where drivers drive the curve as if it had a larger radius than it does. Gunay and Woodward (2007) collected data on traffic flow at five roundabout and three horizontal curve sites in Northern Ireland in 2005 using a camcorder that was hidden from sight as much as possible. Software was used to determine a vehicles lane position from the lane line.…”