United States Department of Transportation
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Predicting Lane Utilization at Signalized Intersections in Advance of Arterial Lane Drops [2024]
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2024-11-01
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[PDF-2.43 MB]
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Edition:Final July 2023 - November 2024
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Abstract:Reducing the number of through travel lanes requires drivers to decide where and when they will merge from the lane that is being dropped (the short lane) to the adjacent through lane. When a large proportion of drivers choose to merge significantly upstream, this can result in poor lane utilization at an upstream signal which, in turn, leads to underused roadway capacity and reduced signal timing effectiveness. This research builds upon research conducted previously for the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) in 2020-2021 to determine the relationship between lane utilization and the length of the short lane on arterials. This research also assesses right-turn queue lengths on freeway on-ramps where a single right-turn lane merges with two left-turn lanes. The results of this research indicate that increasing the length of the short lane on arterials correlates to a moderate increase in utilization. The research also suggests that auxiliary through lanes do not provide the capacity benefit they are often anticipated to have, since the presence of an auxiliary through lane was correlated to a significant reduction in utilization. For lane drops at freeway on-ramps, the research indicated that increasing right-turn queues correlated linearly to increasing volume, particularly in the right-turn lane. Also, increasing the length of the right-turn lane either before or after the merge point correlated non-linearly to reduced right-turn queues. From this relationship, the apparent benefit of increasing right-turn length decreases as length increases until it becomes essentially negligible at about 1,500 feet.
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