• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.37-46
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• 2013

Lane closure in freeway work zone due to maintenance and repair of freeway facilities results in abrupt change of traffic flow. Sudden change of traffic flow results strong interactions among vehicles, and reduces capacity compared to the ordinary traffic condition. Such capacity reduction is likely to cause congestion, traffic queues, and economic loss cost. This study aims to determine the base capacity for a short-term freeway work zone that can be used to establish a work zone schedule in advance without any traffic impact. First, the research collected detector data and schedule data of road works on all freeways in Korea. Second, the research determined 23 study sites finding the capacity values of work zone after matching two kinds of data. All study sites had varying characteristics regarding traffic flow being adjacent to work zone during road works. The capacity values were reviewed in terms of lane closure configuration, the types of work, and design speed. Finally, research proposed capacity values for a short-term freeway work zone with the design speeds of 100 kph, 120 kph and 1,700 pcphpl, 1,750 pcphpl, respectively.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.127-136
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• 2008

In these days, frequency of constructions on e freeway are increasing according as growing of the importance of e road maintenance and the road management. Work zone on the freeway where vehicles pass with high speed needs control method of lane closure and construction equipment. Because there are seldom researches in domestic study about reflecting characteristics of domestic road, sometimes we have applied for foreign cases to our traffic circumstance but it is not proper to apply for standard of other countries in our cases. foreign nation has different country square, condition of road, and level of people mind. Therefore, this study shows traffic accident characteristics in freeway work zones in Korea. At first, this study collected traffic accident data which include for 3 years $2003{\sim}2005$ in the whole freeway in Korea and then divided the data to five parts - level of the accident, type of the construction work, type of the accident, reason of the accident, according to geometric. According to comparing with non-work zones accident, this study found traffic accident characteristics in freeway work zones in Korea and suggested some alternative ideas for safety of work zones.

• Journal of Korean Port Research
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.419-427
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• 2000

Today travel demand continues to increase with spread of economic zones. Also, urban freeway plays an important role in intra-zone transportations as a major corridor in a big city. However, most of urban freeways experience a severe congestion with the excess of inflowing or outflowing traffic through freeway ramps. The purpose of this study is to identify the traffic characteristics, analyze the relationships between the traffic characteristics and finally construct the speed predictive models on the ramp junctions of urban freeway under the intelligent transportation system(ITS) settings. From the analyses of traffic characteristics following results were obtained: ⅰ) 24 hours average traffic characteristics flow, occupancy, speed under the ITS settings showed about 40%, 38%, 8.8% increase each on urban freeway junctions period when compared with that under the non-ITS settings each other. Free flow speed and traffic flow on the mainline sections of urban freeway under the ITS settings also showed about 20% and 17% increase when compared with that under the non-ITS, respectively. ⅱ) The upstream when compared speed( $S_{u}$)and downstream occupancy( $O_{d}$) were especially shown to have higher explanatory powers on the stable flow ramp junctions, but the upstream speed( $S_{u}$) and downstream flow( $V_{d}$) were especially shown on the unstable flow ramp junctions of urban freeway under the ITS settings.ngs.ngs.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.48-61
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• 2020

The objective of this study is to estimate traffic capacity based on the heavy-vehicle ratio in a two-lane freeway work zone where one lane is blocked by construction. For this, closed circuit television (CCTV) video data of the freeway work zone was collected, and the congestion at an upstream point was observed. The traffic volume at a downstream point was analyzed after a bottleneck was created by the blockage due to the upstream congestion. A distribution model was estimated using observed-time headway, and the road capacity was analyzed using a goodness-of-fit test. Through this process, the general capacity and an equation for capacity based on the heavy-vehicle ratio passing through the work zone were presented. Capacity was estimated to be 1,181~1,422 passenger cars per hour per lane (pcphpl) at Yeongdong, and 1,475~1,589pcphpl at Jungbu Naeryuk. As the ratio of heavy vehicles increased, capacity gradually decreased. These findings can contribute to the proper capacity estimation and efficient traffic operation and management for two-lane freeway work zones that block one lane due to a work zone.

• KIISE Transactions on Computing Practices
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• v.22 no.9
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• pp.405-418
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• 2016

Recently, many researchers have studied the VSL decision method using traffic information in multiple detector zones. However, this method selects incorrect VSL starting points, leading to the selection of the wrong speed control zone and calculation of the wrong VSL, causing traffic congestion. Eventually, the Unstable VSL system causes more congestion on the freeway. This paper proposes an improved VSL algorithm stably operated in multiple detector zones on the Korea highway. The proposed algorithm selects a preliminary VSL start station (VSS) expected to end the congestion using the acceleration of stations. It also determines the VSS at each congestion area. Finally, it calculates the VSL relative to the determined VSS and controls the vehicles that enters the traffic congestion zone. The developed strategy is compared with Real-time Variable Speed Limits for Urban Freeway (RVSL) to test the stability and efficiency of the proposed algorithm. The results show that the proposed algorithm resolves the problems of the existing algorithm, demonstrated by the correct VSS decision and the reduction of total travel time by 1-2 minutes.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.1123-1130
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• 2013

This paper aims to estimate work zone base capacity by the number of lanes for urban freeway. To do this, data were collected from the field survey and the database system maintained by traffic control center, and analyzed with four different methods such as the average maximum observation flow rate, headway, regression analysis, and parameter inspection. The work zone base capacity for urban freeway is estimated based on the average maximum observation flow rate and headway method, which are more reliable methods compared to others. The average capacity is 1,650pcphpl when the design speed is 80km/h. The capacity of four lanes one-way work zones was about 1,700pcphpl, while one of 2 lanes one-way work zones was about 1,600pcphpl. The capacity reduction rates for each are 0.15 and 0.2, respectively. The smaller the number of lane is, the more base capacity is reduced. For verification of results, we estimate the capacity by simulation analysis using PARAMICS, and compare with analytical results by a statistical method. This research can be used for efficient and systemic management of work zone in the urban freeway.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.195-202
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to estimate the capacity of two-lane freeway work zone blocking one lane using traffic flow models of each vehicle-type. Firstly, three traffic flow models of three different vehicle-types were developed using the data collected from each at the beginning and the ending point of the work zone. For each model, the maximum flow rate of three vehicle-types were calculated respectively. Maximum flow rate at the work zone was recalculated using passenger car equivalent value and percentage of vehicle-type. Secondly, traffic flow model using passenger car equivalent volume data was developed using the data collected from each at the beginning and the ending point of the work zone. Maximum flow rate for the work zone was calculated along. Two values of maximum flow rates through the work zone were compared and evaluated as the capacity of the work zone. This study found that the maximum flow rate of the work zone at the beginning point was less than that at the ending point because of impedance such as lane changing behaviors before entering the work zone. The capacity of two-lane freeway work zone blocking one lane was estimated 1,800pcphpl.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.263-277
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• 2016

Traffic safety in freeway work zones is of keen interest since both crash frequency and severity are much higher than those in general freeway sections. The lane closure in work zones results in greater work load of drivers due to compulsory lane changes and speed reduction. Therefore, traffic merging control is an effective countermeasure for enhancing work zone safety. This study proposed an integrated framework based on driving and traffic simulations to evaluate traffic merging control methods in terms of traffic safety. In addition to the conventional merging method using the taper, joint merge and chicane-type merge were evaluated by the proposed methodology. Chicane-type merge outperformed other methods under level of service (LOS) A and B. On the other hand, it was identified that joint merge showed the best safety performance under LOS C traffic conditions.

• KIISE Transactions on Computing Practices
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.223-238
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• 2015

Ramp metering is the most effective and direct method to control a vehicle entering the freeway. This paper proposed the new density-based ramp metering method. Existing methods that use the flow data had low reliability data and can have various problems. Also, when the ramp metering was operated by freeway congestion, the additional congestion and over-capacity can occur in the ramp. To solve this problem with the existing method, the proposed method used the density and acceleration data of the freeway and considered the ramp status. The developed strategy was tested on Trunk Highway 62 west bound (TH-62 WB) in Minnesota Twin-City and compared with Stratified Zone Metering(SZM), which had been operating in the Twin-City freeway. To constitute the experiment environment, the VISSIM simulator was used. The Traffic Information and Condition Analysis System (TICAS) was developed to control the PTV VISSIM simulator. The experiment condition was set between 2:00 PM and 7:00 PM, Oct 5th, 2014 during severe traffic congestion. The simulation results showed that total travel time was reduced by 20% for SZM. Thus, we solved the problem of ramp congestion and over-capacity.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.354-372
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• 2016

This study identified factors affecting the crash severity at freeway work zones. A nice feature of this study was to take into account the characteristics of work zone traffic management in analyzing traffic safety concerns. In addition to crash records, vehicle detection systems (VDS) data and work zone historical data were used for establishing a dataset to be used for statistical analyses based on an ordered probit model. A total of six safety improvement strategies for freeway work zones, including traffic merging method, guidance information provision, speed management, warning information systems, traffic safety facility, and monitoring of effectiveness for countermeasures, were also proposed.