Analysis of traffic capacity on mountainous two lane highway adding climbing lane

Abstract

During the construction of mountainous double lane highway, climbing lane plays a certain role for enhancing the traffic capacity. In order to explore traffic capacity improvement effect for different conditions of climbing lane, 20 representative models are chosen, which contain various combinations of alignment and traffic parameters. The changes of traffic capacity, average speed, delays, and saturation in models are obtained before and after the use of a climbing lane by means of numerical simulation. The results show that the use of a climbing lane could improve traffic capacity, average speed, while reducing delays and saturation. The improvement effect is different according to different combinations of alignment and traffic parameters. The research could provide a reference for mountainous climbing lane construction intend.