United States Department of Transportation
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Traffic Bottlenecks: Identification and Solutions
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2016-11-01
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[PDF-4.47 MB]
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Edition:Research Report
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Abstract:The objective of this project was to develop practical methods for prioritizing and mitigating traffic bottlenecks, which are one of the top causes of surface transportation congestion in the United States. Through this project, the following were developed: a new approach for ranking traffic bottlenecks, a new playbook of 70 bottleneck mitigation strategies, a benefit-cost (B/C) analysis of 5 low-cost bottleneck mitigation strategies, and 3 new bottleneck mitigation strategies. Regarding the new approach for ranking traffic bottlenecks, a data-driven congestion and bottleneck identification software tool was created with numerous performance measures. In parallel, extensive traffic simulations were conducted to assess the operational benefits of underrated strategies as opposed to popular strategies, like ramp metering, which have been extensively researched and implemented in recent decades. Moreover, the project focused on low-cost solutions as opposed to solutions requiring excessive infrastructure investments or advanced vehicle technologies. These solutions involved dynamic lane use, contraflow or reversible lane use, hard shoulder lane use, lane width reduction, and modest extension of auxiliary lanes. Research results demonstrated that these solutions produced favorable B/C ratios with only minor modifications to existing infrastructure. The project further developed preliminary design guidance on signing, signalization, and striping for these strategies, with a follow-on human factors study for two of the strategies.
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