• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.17-28
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• 2010

A climbing lane is installed to separate low-speed traffic from high-speed traffic if drastic traffic capacity reduction is expected due to a large number of vehicles that slow down in the upward section. Existing studies on climbing lanes have focused on the designation, location of starting and ending points, and installation method of climbing lane with regard to road design standards. However, in terms of traffic operation, it was known that the climbing lanes cause traffic congestion due to the increase of traffic volumes. In this regard, this study aims to establish traffic operational guidance as to how much effects temporary closure of climbing lanes can have on traffic improvement according to the volume-capacity ratio, grade, and composition of trucks. A test section of simulated climbing lane was selected in Nakdong JC bound for Masan(136.9K~133.3K, 3.6km, 3.7%) on Jungbunaeryuk expressway to conduct VISSIM analyses, microscopic traffic simulation based on such control variables as traffic volume(v/c), grade and the trucks ratio. As a result of the analyses, it has been found that v/c and the ratio of trucks are the key variables for efficient traffic management of climbing lanes in order to relieve traffic congestion via climbing lane. If ratio of trucks are more than 50% and when v/c would be 0.8, both climbing lane would be closed and non-operated regardless of grade and ratio of trucks when v/c is 1.0. With the increased traffic due to a five-day work week system, continued peak hours during the weekday, increased and various patterns of congestion on expressway, this study would be expected to contribute to facilitating researches on flexible operational standards for road facilities.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.179-188
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• 2012

PURPOSES: The aim of this study is to analyze overloading control effectiveness of enforcing overweighted vehicles using HS-WIM (High-Speed Weigh-in-Motion) at main lane of expressway. METHODS: To analyze the weight distribution statistically, HS-WIM system should has an appropriate weighing accuracy. Thus, the weighing accuracy of the two HS-WIM systems was estimated by applying European specifications and ASTM (American Standards for Testing and Materials) for WIM in this study. Based on the results of accuracy test, overweight enforcement system has been operated at main lanes of two expressway routes in order to provide weight informations of overweighted vehicle in real time for enforcement squad. To evaluate the overloading control effectiveness with enforcement, traffic volume and axle loads of trucks for two months at the right after beginning of the enforcement were compared with data set for same periods before the enforcement. RESULTS: As the results of weighing accuracy test, both WIM systems were accepted to the most precise type that can be useful to applicate not only statistical purpose but enforcing on overweight vehicles directly. After the enforcement, the rate of overweighted trucks that weighed over enforcement limits had been decreased by 27% compared with the rate before the enforcement. Especially, the rate of overweighted trucks that weighed over 48 tons had been decreased by 91%. On the other hand, in counterpoint to decrease of the overweighted vehicle, the rate of trucks that weighed under enforcement limits had been increased by 7%. CONCLUSIONS: From the results, it is quite clear that overloading has been controlled since the beginning of the enforcement.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.1-19
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• 2021

The domastic hard shoulder running(HSR) System has been gradually expanding since its initial implementation in September 2007 with the aim of increasing capacity and resolving congestion. Hard Shoulder is used as a space for driver's visual comfort and a place for vehicles to evacuate in case of emergency, but it is replaced by a space for driving when the HSR System is implemented. Therefore, it was intended to determine the improvement effect before and after implementation of the HSR system through safety analysis and mobility analysis. The safety analysis analyzed the impact of traffic accidents by comparing HSR sections and similar sections. The mobility analysis was to determine the improvement effect by quantifying the speed and traffic volume changes before and after HSR System implementation. According to safety yanalysis, there is no effect of reducing traffic accidents when implementing the HSR System. In mobility analysis, the implementation of the HSR System significantly improved the speed of traffic during peak hours and significantly reduces slow and delay hours.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.209-217
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• 2022

Lane management with a central variable lane(s) (or reversible lane) where the traffic flow is temporarily reversed in one or more lanes during peak periods has been evaluated as an effective strategy to alleviate congestion caused by tidal traffic flows. However, due to traffic safety issues, such a movable barrier system can be considered as an alternative to supplement the existing its operation facilities such as static and/or dynamic signs and special pavement markings. In addition, when combined with a bus exclusive lane strategy, its effectiveness could be greatly increased. The objective of this study is to propose a feasibility analysis procedure for operational strategies of a bus-exclusive lanes using a barrier transfer system (BTS) for urban expressways. To this end, a case study was conducted on two urban expressways on the west side of the Han River in Seoul. As a result, temporary operation during rush hour in the morning was found to be most effective. The results presented in this study are expected to serve as a basis for establishing bus-exclusive lane operation strategies using similar systems in the future.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.208-218
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• 2017

This study aims to develop the Vehicle Local Dynamic Map (V-LDM) and demonstrate its performance for providing dynamic map data efficiently to the vehicle control module. Firstly, the concept of the in-vehicle LDM has been established and then the system has been carefully designed according to the international standards. The high-precision digital map embedded in LDM has been designed to incorporate the lane-level information of road network, and the Dynamic Map protocol (DM protocol) which is a message protocol including the road data with dynamic traffic event data has been defined. The performance test of the proposed system has been conducted in the uninterrupted road section of Kyungbu expressway, showing that both of the data size and the elapsed time to finish the process are almost linearly proportional to the length of target road. Finally, it is recommended that the length of target road for DM protocol be less than 250m.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.69-78
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• 2009

Korea has achieved significant economic growth with building the Gyeongbu Expressway. As the number of new road construction projects has decreased, it becomes more important to maintain optimal status of the current road networks. One of the best ways to accomplish it is weight enforcement as active control measure of traffic load. This study is to develop High-speed Weigh-in-motion System in order to enhance efficiency of weight enforcement, and to analyze patterns of overloaded trucks on highways through the system. Furthermore, it is to review possibilities of developing overweight control system with application of the HS-WIM system. The HS-WIM system developed by this study consists of two sets of an axle load sensor, a loop sensor and a wandering sensor on each lane. A wandering sensor detects whether a travelling vehicle is off the lane or not with the function of checking the location of tire imprint. The sensor of the WIM system has better function of classifying types of vehicles than other existing systems by detecting wheel distance and tire type such as single or dual tire. As a result, its measurement errors regarding 12 types of vehicle classification are very low, which is an advantage of the sensor. The verification tests of the system under all conditions showed that the mean measurement errors of axle weight and gross axle weight were within 15 percent and 7 percent respectively. According to the WIM rate standard of the COST-323, the WIM system of this study is ranked at B(10). It means the system is appropriate for the purpose of design, maintenance and valuation of road infrastructure. The WIM system in testing a 5-axle cargo truck, the most frequently overloaded vehicle among 12 types of vehicles, is ranked at A(5) which means the system is available to control overloaded vehicles. In this case, the measurement errors of axle load and gross axle load were within 8 percent and 5 percent respectively. Weight analysis of all types of vehicles on highways showed that the most frequently overloaded vehicles were type 5, 6, 7 and 12 among 12 vehicle types. As a result, it is necessary to use more effective overweight enforcement system for vehicles which are seriously overloaded due to their lift axles. Traffic volume data depending upon vehicle types is basic information for road design and construction, maintenance, analysis of traffic flow, road policies as well as research.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.133-144
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• 2004

A model and a measure which can evaluate the risk of rear end collision are developed. Most traffic accidents involve multiple causes such as the human factor, the vehicle factor, and the highway element at any given time. Thus, these factors should be considered in analyzing the risk of an accident and in developing safety models. Although most risky situations and accidents on the roads result from the poor response of a driver to various stimuli, many researchers have modeled the risk or accident by analyzing only the stimuli without considering the response of a driver. Hence, the reliabilities of those models turned out to be low. Thus in developing the model behaviors of a driver, such as reaction time and deceleration rate, are considered. In the past, most studies tried to analyze the relationships between a risk and an accident directly but they, due to the difficulty of finding out the directional relationships between these factors, developed a model by considering these factors, developed a model by considering indirect factors such as volume, speed, etc. However, if the relationships between risk and accidents are looked into in detail, it can be seen that they are linked by the behaviors of a driver, and depending on drivers the risk as it is on the road-vehicle system may be ignored or call drivers' attention. Therefore, an accident depends on how a driver handles risk, so that the more related risk to and accident occurrence is not the risk itself but the risk responded by a driver. Thus, in this study, the behaviors of a driver are considered in the model and to reflect these behaviors three concepts related to accidents are introduced. And safe stopping distance and accident occurrence probability were used for better understanding and for more reliable modeling of the risk. The index which can represent the risk is also developed based on measures used in evaluating noise level, and for the risk comparison between various situations, the equivalent risk level, considering the intensity and duration time, is developed by means of the weighted average. Validation is performed with field surveys on the expressway of Seoul, and the test vehicle was made to collect the traffic flow data, such as deceleration rate, speed and spacing. Based on this data, the risk by section, lane and traffic flow conditions are evaluated and compared with the accident data and traffic conditions. The evaluated risk level corresponds closely to the patterns of actual traffic conditions and counts of accident. The model and the method developed in this study can be applied to various fields, such as safety test of traffic flow, establishment of operation & management strategy for reliable traffic flow, and the safety test for the control algorithm in the advanced safety vehicles and many others.