• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.47-54
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• 2021

The number of freeway traffic accidents in Korea is about 4,000 as of 2020, and deaths per traffic accident is about 3.7 times higher than other roads due to non-recurring congestion and high driving speed. Most of the accident types on freeways are side and rear-end collisions, and one of the main factors is hazard traffic flow caused by merge, diverge and accidents. Therefore, the hazard traffic flow, which appears in a continuous flow such as a freeway, can be said to be important information for the driver to prevent accidents. This study tried to classify hazard traffic flows, such as the speed change point and the section where the speed difference by lane, using individual vehicle information. The homogeneous segment of speed was classified using spatial separation based on geohash and space mean speed that can indicate the speed difference of individual vehicles within the same section and the speed deviation between vehicles. As a result, I could extract the diverging influence segment and the hazard traffic flow segment that can provide dangerous segments information of freeways.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.161-171
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• 2016

OBJECTIVES : Many roadway departure crashes on the freeway interchange are due to the running speed being greater than the design speed. This study aims to ensure a safe and pleasant driving experience for the driver by increasing the superelevation based on the running speed on the highway interchange ramp. METHODS : The mean running speed for each type of ramp is calculated on site survey more than 10 interchanges. Using the mean running speed, we calculated the superelevation and the side friction using the method given in "A Policy on Geometric Design of Highways and Street" (Pages 145-166, 2001). Then, we applied the modified method to the superelevation range. Finally, we ensured safety using the Degree of Safety that is proven by the centrifugal acceleration ratio as suggested by Joseph Craus (1978). RESULTS : The mean running speeds are 50 km/h and 65 km/h when the design speeds are 40 km/h and 50 km/h, respectively. After the application of the new method used in this study, the superelevation will be increased by 9.0% and 10.0% when the mean running speeds are 50 km/h and 65 km/h, respectively. CONCLUSIONS : A higher superelevation can give the driver a more comfortable and safe driving environment. However, the driver needs to be aware of snow and low-temperature conditions.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.52-69
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• 2020

Considering the need for an infrastructure-level review, this study analyzed the impact of truck platooning on freeway traffic flow and the effect of dedicated lanes based on domestic road and traffic conditions. According to the study, the higher traffic volume and truck ratio, the higher ratio of platoons and the greater size of platoons are formed, which results in greater effect of increasing the average speed of the network. Therefore, the routes with heavy traffic and heavy cargo traffic could be positively considered for truck platooning. However, the analysis showed that the effect of increasing the average speed of the entire network is difficult to expect in the event of a queue due to entry and exit, and that the overall network's throughput could be reduced. Therefore, traffic operation strategies associated with the access road, such as securing capacity of the connection, are needed to maximize the effect of truck platooning. When it comes to the effect of dedicated lane, it could have a positive effect only if one lane was fully operated by automated trucks under the condition of 100% MPR, which allowed positive effects in all aspects, such as higher average speed, throughput, and reduced conflict rates.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.29-39
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• 1999

An earlier study of the effect of rain found that the capacity of freeway systems was reduced, but did not address the effects of rain on the nature of traffic flows. Indeed, the substantial variation due to the intensity of adverse weather conditions is entirely rational so that its effects must be considered in freeway facility design. However, all of the data in Highway Capacity Manual(HCM) have come from ideal conditions. The primary objective of this study is to investigate the effect of rain on urban freeway traffic flows in Seoul. To do so, the relations between three key traffic variables(flow rates, speed, occupancy), their threshold values between congested and uncontested traffic flow regimes, and speed distribution were investigated. The traffic data from Olympic Expressway in Seoul were obtained from Imagine Detection System (Autoscope) with 30 seconds and 1 minute time periods. The slope of the regression line relating flow to occupancy in the uncongested regime decreases when it is raining. In essence, this result indicates that the average service flow rate (it may be interpreted as a capacity of freeway) is reduced as weather conditions deteriorate. The reduction is in the range between 10 and 20%, which agrees with the range proposed by 1994 US HCM. It is noteworthy that the service flow rates of inner lanes are relatively higher than those of other lanes. The average speed is also reduced in rainy day, but the flow-speed relationship and the threshold values of speed and occupancy (these are called critical speed and critical occupancy) are not very sensitive to the weather conditions.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.123-133
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• 2015

PURPOSES : This study aimed to develop a new highway capacity estimation method and provide comparative results among traditional capacity estimation methods and the recommended values in the latest version of KHCM. METHODS : The limitations of the existing methods, such as inconsistency and underestimation of the capacity value, are summarized through an extensive literature review. To overcome these limitations, a new method is introduced by adopting a definition of capacity and traffic flow characteristics at or near breakdown points. This method can produce the capacity value by searching a point corresponding to the maximum traffic flow through analysis of gradient changes (point of inflection) of the traffic flow and speed distribution. Comparative results of capacity values from each method are also presented to validate the new method by using data collected from detectors on freeways. RESULTS: From the analysis results, it is shown that a consistent capacity value can be estimated by applying the new method. In addition, the resulting capacity values are 3%-4% higher than those recommended in KHCM. CONCLUSIONS : The capacity values listed in the current KHCM tend to produce underestimated results. The new method presented in this paper may be included in the future edition of KHCM.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.57-62
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• 2014

PURPOSES : Capacity is a main factor of determining the number of lane in highway design or the level of service in road on operation. Previous studies showed that breakdown may occur before capacity is reached, and then it was concluded that capacity is a stochastic value rather than a deterministic one. In general, estimating capacity is based on average over maximum traffic volume observed for capacity state. This method includes the empirical distribution method(EDM) and would underestimate capacity. This study estimated existing empirical methods of estimating stochastic highway capacity. Among the studied methods are the product limit method(PLM) and the selected method(SM). METHODS : Speed and volume data were collected at three freeway bottleneck sites in Cheonan-Nonsan and West Sea Freeway. The data were grouped into a free-flow state or capacity state with speeds observed in the bottlenecks and the upstream. The data were applied to the empirical methods. RESULTS : The results show that the PLM and SM estimated capacity higher than EDM. The reason is that while the EDM is based on capacity observations only, the PLM and SM are based on free-flow high volumes and capacity observations. CONCLUSIONS : The PLM and SM using both free-flow and capacity observations would be improved to enhance the reliability of the capacity estimation.

• 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.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.68-80
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• 2016

Interest in freeway truck traffic has increased largely due to greater safety concerns regarding truck-related crashes. The negative interactions between slow-moving trucks and other vehicles are a primary cause of hazardous conditions, which lead to crashes with larger speed variations. To improve operational efficiency and safety, providing a climbing lane that separates slow-moving trucks from higher performance vehicles is frequently considered when upgrading geometrics. This study developed an operations strategy for freeway climbing lanes based on traffic conditions in real time. To consider traffic safety when designing a dynamic strategy to determine whether a climbing lane is closed or open, various factors, including the level of service (LOS) and the percentage of trucks, are investigated through microscopic simulations. A microscopic traffic simulator, VISSIM, was used to simulate freeway traffic streams and collect vehicle-maneuvering data. Additionally, an external application program interface, VISSIM's COM-interface, was used to implement the proposed climbing lane operations strategies. Surrogate safety measures (SSM), including the frequency of rear-end conflicts and, were used to quantitatively evaluate the traffic safety using an analysis of individual vehicle trajectories obtained from VISSIM simulations with various operations scenarios. It is expected that the proposed algorithm can be the backbone for operating the climbing lane in real time for safer traffic management.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.133-151
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• 1995

The collective of highly reliable traffic data is necessary for traffic signal control. This study is to test application of RTMS sensor to traffic signal control. In order to find out the possibility of its application th traffic signal control, 5 types of experiments were performed. The major findings are as follows ; -The detection are a has been changing according to degree and gain. -At the results of experiments for interference are a measure, Degree 60 is stable condition. -At the results of reliability test for volume and speed. the error rate decreases as speed increases and that of Zone 1 is lower than that of Zone 3. -Two modes are set up for reliability test of traffic volume. It founds that the detection reliability of the stopped vehicles are higher than that of the passing vehicles at sidefire-intersection mode. It founds that the results are vice-versa at sidefire-highway mode. Conclusively, this sensor cannot directly apply to colection of traffic data for traffic signal control. However, this sensor can be substituted for a loop detector which is used popularly for signal control, and freeway traffic control if above faults are made up.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.116-126
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• 2016

In this study, lane-wise traffic flow characteristics were analysed on uninterrupted flow using a new notion of "lane-wise travel speed reversal (LTSR)" which is defined as a phenomena that travel speed in the median lane is lower than other lanes. Mathematical formulation was also proposed to calculate the strength of LTSR. The experiment road site is Seoul Outer Ring Expressway (Jayuro-IC~Jangsoo-IC), and travel trajectories for each four lane were collected for weekdays (Mon. through Fri.) during morning peak. Comparing lane-wise travel speeds for entire test road section, no LTSR was observed, meaning that the travel speed in the median lane is the fastest, followed by 2nd, 3rd, and 4th lane as in order. Howerver, the result of microscopic analysis using 100-meter discrete road section based data shows that LTSR occurs many times. Especially the strength of LTSR is higher in congestion area and freeway merge and diverge segment. It is expected that these results could be used as a fundamental data when establishing lane-by-lane traffic operation strategy and developing lane-wise traffic information collection and dissemination technology.