Capacity of freeway merge areas with different on-ramp traffic flow

Abstract

This paper is aimed at investigating the influence of different types of traffic flows on the capacity of freeway merge areas. Based on the classical gap-acceptance model, two calculating models were established specifically considering randomly arriving vehicles and individual difference in driving behaviours. Monte-Carlo simulation was implemented to reproduce the maximum traffic volume on the designed free way merge area under different situations. The results demonstrated that the proposed calculating models have better performance than the conventional gap-acceptance theory on accurately predicting the capacity of freeway merge areas. The findings of research could be helpful to improve the microscopic traffic flow simulation model from a more practical perspective and support the designing of freeway merge areas as well.