Proposal of a New Global Model of Consistency: Application in Two-Lane Rural Highways in Spain

Abstract

Consistency is the relationship between the geometric characteristics of a highway and the conditions a driver expects to encounter. In this study, based on operating speed, consistency was calculated in two-lane rural highways of the province of Granada, Spain. Three consistency measures were calculated for 506 homogeneous road sections: the relative area, which represents the area bounded by the speed profile and average speed of a road segment; the standard deviation of the operating speed in each design element along the road segment; and a consistency model based on the previous measures introduced. Some discrepancies regarding the obtained results lead the authors to propose a new model of consistency that overcomes the identified disagreements.