The purpose of this paper is to summarise the more important Australian contributions to the advancement of knowledge in road capacity. Capacity was first mentioned in the Australian literature in about 1930. By the second half of the 1940s the concept was well accepted, and by the mid 1950s Australians were becoming directly involved in capacity and related research. Early research was related to basic traffic flow theory, and it made a useful contribution to knowledge in this area. In more recent times, Australian research effort has tended to concentrate on areas where the United States Highway Capacity Manuals have been judged to be inadequate or inappropriate for Australian conditions, namely on some aspects of Australian conditions, namely on some aspects of two-lane rural roads, signalised intersections and roundabouts. The paper provides some background material, and then overviews Australian work in the above areas. In these areas, the work has been of a high technical standard, has been well documented and has been effectively translated into practice. (A)
Abstract