Assessment of level-of-service for on-ramp expressway using MHCM 2011 and microsimulation vissim

Abstract

The traffic congestion during peak hour in Malaysia is becoming worst from year to year due to the increase of traffic demand volume. At the year 2018, the total accumulated vehicles in Malaysia are 14,415,978 vehicles in 2018 based on 16-hours traffic volume [4]. Based on this figure, the normal growth of the vehicle has increased by 0.74% per year. It is crucial for traffic engineer in Malaysia to follow an appropriate standard and manual to determine the performance of highway facilities that will provide accurate result reflecting the existing operation of the highway. Thus, this paper provides the comparative study in evaluating the performance of the on-ramp segment between Malaysia Highway Capacity Manual 2011 (MHCM 2011) and microsimulation Vissim. The evaluation of performance measure for on-ramp expressway is based on the traffic density at merge influence area. Both performances measured using MHCM 2011 and Vissim was statistically compared with collected empirical data and the difference in the level of service (LOS) is also compared. The result from this study will determine which tools will be able to replicate the empirical data and the difference of grade of LOS between MHCM 2011 and Vissim.