Operational Assessment of Joint and Conventional Lane Merge Configurations for Freeway Work Zones

Rayaprolu, Pradeep; Ishak, Sherif; Qi, Yan; Wolshon, Brian

doi:10.1080/15472450.2012.707052

Cited by 17 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 19 publications

(22 reference statements)

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“…The results showed that the new proposed configuration outperformed the conventional lane merge by a maximum of 12.6% improvement in throughput and 94.83% reduction in average delay time at high levels of demand. The results also indicated that the conventional lane merge configurations are more suitable for sites with relatively high percentage of trucks, while joint lane merge configurations are more suitable for sites with low percentage of trucks [4].…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 91%

Evaluation of Work Zone Strategies at Signalized Intersections

Elnashar¹

2013

JTLE

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Reducing congestion in work zones and improving mobility has become more crucial than ever especially with the increased number of road projects. Work zones at street intersections are costly due to the delay experienced by both contractors and motorists. Work zones at signalized intersections are needed in the case of new construction, re-building the signal, or maintaining an existing traffic. This type of work can significantly affect traffic operations at intersections. Any lane reduction due to the construction zones will result in significant congestion. Another alternative is to reduce the existing lanes width and the speed limit instead of closing lanes. Although the literature shows statistics on work zone operations especially on freeways, there is a lack of information about signalized intersections. The purpose of this paper is to compare the amount of motorist delay that would accrue along the work zone from two strategies. Alternative 1 is based on reducing the number of lanes at the intersection and Alternative 2 is based on reducing lanes' width and maintaining the number of lanes at the intersection. The conducted methods showed that Alternative 2 provided better system operational performance than Alternative 1 for the cases tested. 

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 91%

Evaluation of Work Zone Strategies at Signalized Intersections

Elnashar¹

2013

JTLE

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“…To date, the merging plan shown in Fig. 3 has been tested virtually, in the field during live construction, and in the field without construction (Aghazadeh and Ikuma, 2013; Rayaprolu et al, 2010;Costa, 2013;Idewu and Wolshon, 2010). Results were similar for each test.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Video observations of truck drivers showed that many of them merge early, regardless of the merging system used. Coupled with the finding that the average speed of trucks on interstates is four to seven miles per hour below that of passenger cars (Indrajit Chatterjee, 2009;Rayaprolu et al, 2013), the potential for trucks to drastically affect traffic flow at work zones is high.…”

Section: Percent Truck Compositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying Optimum Taper Lengths for Zipper Merging Applications using Real Data and Microscopic Simulation

Idewu

Chanpiwat

Naghawi

2019

Period. Polytech. Transp. Eng.

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Motorists lack of understanding on the proper way to maneuver through lane closures during congested periods cause driver confusion. This confusion directly and indirectly creates inconsistent flow patterns, forced merges, travel time delays, and crashes. Engineers and developers have tried to improve the merge systems used in construction zones to reduce driver frustration, improve travel time, and increase safety. Encouraging drivers to use the zipper merge approach has been assumed by some to target these issues. When implemented, drivers jointly merge together in an alternating fashion at two-to-one lane closures/reductions. There is a difference in opinion between traffic officials concerning the taper length required to efficiently accommodate these types of merging patterns – particularly those that occur near construction sites. Current practice uses the taper design guideline presented in the MUTCD. However, some believe this unique approach to merging at lane reductions should be accompanied by a shorter/longer taper. This study simulated 192 scenarios consisting of eight different percent truck compositions, six different transition lengths, and four different traffic volumes in VISSIM. The simulation models were calibrated with field data taken while a zipper merge configuration was in operation on a freeway. The main objective was to identify the optimum transition length when placing a zipper merge configuration because it visually and physically promoted alternating merging maneuvers. The results indicated none of the six tested taper lengths had a clear advantage over the other under multiple traffic volumes and truck percentages. Although statistically equal, operational differences in response to taper lengths were present and became more pronounced as volumes and truck percentages increased.

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“…Due to road pavement reconstruction, pipeline installation, underground engineering construction, the work zones sometimes should be set at the intersections, which results in a decrease in lane number (Li, Mori, & Work, 2018;Liu, Khattak, & Zhang, 2016). The capacity of the intersection reduces accordingly, which may even affect the adjacent road network if it the critical intersection in the region (Al-Deek and Emam, 2006;Lukose, Levin, & Boyles, 2019;Rayaprolu, Ishak, Qi, & Wolshon, 2013;Xu et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An alternative design for traffic intersections with work zones by using pre-signals

Zhao

Kigen

Xia

2020

Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems

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The lane closures caused by the work zone at the approaches create a negative impact on the operational effectiveness of the signalized intersections. This paper presents an innovative design for intersections with work zones to improve the intersection's practical capacity. In this design, the lanes in the leg with work zone can be used dynamically as approach and exit lanes during different periods of a signal cycle by using the pre-signal. An optimization model for an optimal geometric layout and signal timing design is built to capture real-world operational constraints, including the lane assignment, the signal timing of the main signal and pre-signal, the distance of the mixed-usage area and the transition area, and the degree of saturation restriction.A case study and extensive numerical analysis demonstrate the effectiveness of the prospective design as compared with conventional designs under different geometric layout and traffic demand situations. Overall, the proposed design can lead to an increment in the practical capacity of the intersection with a work zone (by up to 30%) and reduce the average vehicular delay accordingly (by 50%) without necessitating an expansion of the intersection. The results show that the promising application of the proposed design when the length of the work zone is less than 160 m.

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Operational Assessment of Joint and Conventional Lane Merge Configurations for Freeway Work Zones

Cited by 17 publications

References 19 publications

Evaluation of Work Zone Strategies at Signalized Intersections

Evaluation of Work Zone Strategies at Signalized Intersections

Identifying Optimum Taper Lengths for Zipper Merging Applications using Real Data and Microscopic Simulation

An alternative design for traffic intersections with work zones by using pre-signals

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