The main objective of this study is to investigate traffic behaviour and characteristics during the merging process under congested situation to design a safer and less congested merging points as well as a more efficient control at these bottleneck sections. In Tokyo Metropolitan Expressway (MEX), as in other freeways, traffic congestion frequently occurs at merging bottleneck sections especially under heavy traffic demand. Metropolitan expressway public corporation generally applies different empirical strategies such as closure of one lane or installation of post cone to increase the flow rate and decrease the accident rate at the merging sections. However, these strategies do not rely on any behavioural characteristic of the merging traffic under congested condition and its relation with geometric design of the merging segments. There have been only a few research publications about the traffic behaviour and characteristics in these situations. Based on extensive macroscopic and microscopic study, a behavioural model has been developed for these situations. In addition and based on the behavioural model as an evaluation tool, a multi-purpose simulation program FMCSP (Freeway Merging Capacity Simulation Program) has been developed. The outcome of the behavioural and simulation models is applied to ITS in order to develop variety of strategies for safer and less congested freeway merging sections. Also in this research a link between FMCSP and a certain DS (Driving Simulator) is made to experiment the effect of geometric design, lane marking, VMS, etc on the driving behaviour. The conceptual framework to approach these issues is illustrated.
Samenvatting