This report presents the results of the "Criteria for construction of service roads" working group, which was supervised by the Netherlands Centre for Research and Contract Standardization in Civil and Traffic Engineering (CROW). An attempt was made to find a method to quantify the effect of keeping slow agricultural vehicles off the main carriageway in respect of road safety and traffic flow. On the basis of available research data, this proved to be impossible in general, as far as road safety is concerned. The data obtained can, however, be used in forecasting the effect on safety in actual cases. The total extra travelling time for fast traffic was chosen as a criterium for the effect on traffic flow. This extra time caused per ride of a slow vehicle can be measured with a model. To determine the number of rides made by agricultural vehicles on a specific road section, index numbers for the travelling frequency per surface unit of agricultural area accessible via through roads, were calculated for various types of areas and farms. A method was developed for determining the opened up areas with their respective travelling distances on through roads and the extra travelling time for fast traffic.
Abstract