Modification of the Highway Capacity Manual two‐lane highway analysis procedure for Spanish conditions

Abstract

SUMMARYThe US Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) methodology is used in Spain to evaluate traffic operation and quality of service. The effect of passing manoeuvre on two-lane highway operational performance is considered through adjustment factors to average travel speeds and percent time spent following. The procedure is largely based on simulations in TWOPAS and passing behaviours observed during US calibrations in the 1970s. It is not clear whether US driving behaviour and vehicles' performance are comparable with Spanish conditions. The objective of this research is to adapt the HCM 2010 methodology to Spanish driver behaviour, for base conditions (i.e. no passing restrictions). To do so, TWOPAS was calibrated and validated based on current Spanish passing field data. The calibration used a genetic algorithm. The case study included an ideal two-lane highway with varying directional traffic flow rate, directional split and percentage of trucks. The updated methodology for base conditions is simpler than the current HCM 2010 and does not rely on interpolation from tables.

Calibration and Validation of a Volume-Delay Function Using a Genetic Algorithm

“…To calibrate and validate the Akçelik model, a GA was used with similar characteristics to other applications in a microscale network to calibrate the parameters of behavioral models (Moreno et al, 2016) and performance models (Bessa Jr. and Setti, 2018).…”

“…In microscopic networks, calibration and validation of simulators have generally been performed to adjust behavioral submodels such as car-following, lanechanging, and gap-acceptance. The genetic algorithm (GA) is a search and optimization tool widely used for the calibration of microscopic networks, such as Paramics (Ma et al, 2007;Ma and Abdulhai, 2012;Zhou and Cai, 2014;Shan et al, 2018), VISSIM (Park and Qi, 2005;Stevanovic et al, 2008;Yu and Fan, 2017;Siam et al, 2018;Gallelli et al, 2019), and TWOPAS (Dowling and Skabardonis, 2006;Moreno et al, 2016).…”

Operational Considerations of Passing Zones for Two-lane Highways: Spanish Case Study

“…Local adaptations of the HCM analysis procedure for two-lane highways were performed in Finland [15,16,17], Brazil [18,19], Argentina [20], India [21], and Spain [22], while Germany has its own analysis procedure [23,24]. The most commonly used performance measures (in all countries' two-lane highway analysis procedures) are ATS and PTSF, with notable exceptions being that Germany uses density; Finland does not consider PTSF, and the ATS of interest is just for passenger cars; and India includes the number of followers as a proportion of capacity.…”

“…5) Modeling traffic operations for scenarios with passing restrictions. Tasks 1 and 2 were carried out as a part of a previous study that feeds into this research [22]. They are summarized in the following sections.…”

Determinación de capacidad de carreteras en Cuenca (Ecuador) y comparación con el manual de capacidad HCM

“…Entre estas se encuentran: las condiciones geométricas de la vía, que condicionan al conductor a decidir su velocidad de viaje, el factor humano o el comportamiento propio del conductor, e inclusive la cultura de la ciudad en la que se realiza el estudio. Además de los artículos mencionados, también se cuenta con estudios europeos (Moreno et al, 2016) y latinoamericanos (Maldonado et al, 2012), que también han identificado la necesidad de ajustar el modelo HCM a la realidad de la región en donde será aplicado, esto, mediante la definición de las variables influyentes para VFL. A lo dicho se suma el hecho de que la propia HCM hace referencia a la limitada aplicabilidad de sus ecuaciones para sitios donde las velocidades de circulación son bajas.…”