• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.2D
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• pp.105-111
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• 2010

Operating speed is one of key elements in the design and operation of freeway. Few studies have been carried out macroscopically to find characteristics of free-flow speed (FFS) using small sample size and not considering the conditions of traffic volume and the effects of hour periods. As an attempt to find out the characteristics of FFS, this study microscopically analysed both the distributions of freeway FFS and percentile speeds according to traffic volume and daily hour periods using huge sample size. It was found out that speed distributions are changed and showed different behaviors under the conditions of traffic volumes(1-5 veh/30sec) and daily hour periods(0-5, 6-8, 9-11, 12-19, 20-23). V85(85th percentile speed) at morning, night, and midnight period decreases according to increase in traffic volume respectively, whereas V85 at day time does not show considerable differences. So the behaviors of V85 according to hour periods dramatically changed according to the increase in traffic volume.