• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
• /
• v.28 no.5
• /
• pp.141-153
• /
• 2010

The study is about the development of operating speed prediction models aimed for an evaluation of design consistency of four lane rural roads. The main differences of this study relative to previous research are the method of data collection and classification of road alignments. The previous studies collected speed data at several points in the horizontal curve and approaching tangent. This method of collection is based on the assumption that acceleration and deceleration only occurs at horizontal tangents and the speed is kept constant at horizontal curves. However, this assumption leads to an unreliable speed estimation, so drivers' behavior is not well represented. Contrary to the previous approach, speed data were collected with one and data analysis using a speed profile is made for data selection before building final models. A total of six speed prediction models were made according to the combination of horizontal and vertical alignments. The study predicts that the speed data analysis and selection for model building employed in this study can improve the prediction accuracy of models and be useful to analyze drivers' speed behavior in a more detailed way. Furthermore, it is expected that the operating speed prediction models can help complement the current design-speed-based guidelines, so more benefits to drivers as real road users, rather than engineers or decision makers, can be achieved.