Effect of Horizontal Alignment on Driver Speed Behaviour On
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Effect of Horizontal Alignment on Driver Speed Behaviour on Different Road Classifications Submitted by Bin Nie, B. Eng. A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Applied Science Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario © Bin Nie 2006 The Master of Applied Science in Civil Engineering Program is a joint program with the University of Ottawa, administrated by the Ottawa-Carleton Institute for Civil Engineering Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Library and Bibliotheque et Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-18328-1 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-18328-1 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce,Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve,sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet,distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans loan, distribute and sell theses le monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non sur support microforme, papier, electronique commercial purposes, in microform,et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privee, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont ete enleves de cette these. While these forms may be includedBien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. i * i Canada Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This thesis is dedicated to: My lovely son,ZhanPeng Nie Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT The operating speed method has proved highly effective in achieving consistent alignments on the highway facility. Accordingly tremendous research efforts have been drawn to operating speed prediction worldwide over the past decades. However, most of the previous research concentrated on two-lane rural highways only, and there has been little study conducted on other road types. Some prediction models are questionable due to the bias or human errors induced by manual speed measurements. Driver speed behaviour may be misinterpreted because of the limited and discrete observation points on the study site. This research proposed a field experiment to analyze driver speed behaviour on the most common road types in Eastern Ontario, including freeway interchanges. Speed prediction models were firstly developed, using real driving data for two-lane rural highways and urban/suburban roads, respectively. The models consider driver speed behaviour when negotiating horizontal curves. Driver behaviour on freeway interchanges was also investigated. m Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author would like to thank his colleagues Dalia Said and Wael Moustafa. Without their cooperation and diligent efforts, the field study would have not be smoothly conducted and accomplished on time. Special thanks go to volunteer drivers, who participated in experiments, and those standing at the GPS control point, for their selfless sacrifice and supports. The author would like to thank McMartin, Ken, Conley, Stanley, Whitehome, Jim, and Trudel, Pierre, at Civil and Environmental Laboratory of Carleton University. Without their seamless collaboration in setting up the test vehicle, the fulfillment of this research was certainly not possible. The author would like to express his thanks to Stephen M, Perkins, at Survey and Mapping of the City of Ottawa, for providing roadway data used in this research. The author would like to thank Dr. Dan E, Patterson, at Carleton University, Ottawa. His contributions to the database construction in this study are highly appreciated. The author would like to express his sincere gratitude to the thesis supervisor, Professor Yasser Hassan, whom for his timely supervision, patience, encouragement, and his invaluable time, I was able to deliver this work. Financial support by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC ) is gratefully acknowledged. The experiment equipment used in this research was made available by funds from the Canada Foundation Innovation (CFI) and Ontario Innovation Trust (0/7). iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract.................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................iv Table of Contents ......................................................................................................................v List of Tables ..........................................................................................................................viii List of Figures ........................................................................................................................... x Chapter 1: Introduction ...........................................................................................................1 1.1 Background ................................................................................... 1 1.2 Objectives .............................................................................................................3 1.3 Scope of Research ................................................................................................ 4 1.4 Thesis Organization .............................................................................................5 Chapter 2: Literature Review ................................................................................................. 6 2.1 Highway Alignment and Speed ........................................................................... 6 2.1.1 Design Speed Approach ......................... 7 2.1.2 Operating Speed Approach ................................................................................15 2.2 Highway Alignment and Geometric Design Consistency ................................19 2.2.1 Definition of Design Consistency ..................................................................... 19 2.2.2 Design Consistency in North American Design Guides ................................. 20 2.2.3 Design Consistency Evaluation Approaches .................................................... 22 2.2.3.a Speed Distribution Methods ..........................................................23 2.2.3.b Operating Speed Methods ............................................................. 24 2.2.4 Operating Speed Modelling ...............................................................................25 2.3 Summary............................................................................................................. 37 v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter 3: Data Collection and Database Preparation ......................................................41 3.1 Data Collection .................................................................................................. 41 3.1.1 Experiment Scheme...........................................................................................41 3.1.2 Selection of the Test Route ............................................................................... 43 3.1.3 Driver Recruitment ............................................................................................45 3.1.4 Experiment Equipment ......................................................................................46 3.1.4.a Corsa Data Acquisition System and Speed Sensor .....................47 3.1.4.b GPS System................................................................................... 51 3.1.4.c Lidar Gun and Video Camera ....................................................... 54 3.1.5 Equipment Coordination ....................................................................................55 3.2 Database Preparation .......................................................................................... 55 3.2.1 Introduction of Arcview 3.2a ...........................................................................