A Simple Approach for Determining No-Passing Zones in Two-Lane Rural Highways

Provision of Passing Sight Distance (PSD) is an important component in two-lane highway design and has a critical impact on capacity of highway and safety of drivers. Many models have been developed to estimate PSD reasonably. However, each of them has a number of shortcomings for reflecting the real traffic conditions. This paper introduces a revised model that reflects the characteristics of the passing maneuver. The changes in passing sight distances under different assumptions about acceleration and vehicle length, which are related to vehicle types, are presented. The results obtained by the revised model are compared with those obtained from the existing models. There is an important link between geometric design decisions which determine the available sight distance and the quality of service which the road provides. In this paper, we examine one aspect of this relationship. That is to determine whether the passing sight distance is provided by improving horizontal alignment for a specific roadway section or passing may be restricted to save the road construction cost. To do so, a simple method for estimating traffic delay in no-passing is introduced.