Evaluation of Performance Measures for Two-Lane Intercity Highways under Mixed Traffic Conditions

Abstract

Traffic performance of a highway is expressed in terms of level of service (LOS). It is a major input to important decisions on public fund investments. Because of its unique operational characteristics, evaluation of traffic performance on two-lane highways is a critical task. This research examines the applicability of various performance measures for two-lane highways under mixed traffic conditions and assigns threshold values for different levels of service based on the best performance measure observed. Graphical and statistical analyses are carried out among the six most popular performance measures and traffic volume, but none of the considered measures are found to be reliable. A new parameter, number of followers (NF), which is defined as the number of vehicles traveling with a gap less than 2.6 s, is found to have good correlation with traffic volume but it does not reflect the true congestion conditions of a roadway. Therefore, the NF is further modified to the number of followers as a proportion of capacity (NFPC), and this parameter demonstrates a very strong correlation with traffic volume. Threshold values are proposed for the different LOS based on NFPC for mixed traffic conditions.