• Journal of Korean Port Research
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.333-350
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• 1999

Today freeway is thought to be a very important transportation facility carrying tremendous traffic flow as the main corridor within the area of between the areas. However freeway is experiencing severe congestion and accidents by increased entrance ramp flow especially at peak time period. Ramp meters on the freeway entrance ramps that supply traffic to the freeway in a measured or appropriately regulated amount are needed for alleviating freeway congestion. Because ramp meters can be operated to discharge traffic at a measured or regulated rate thus maintaining more uniform speed on the mainline section maximizing the throughput to the freeway within the capacity of a downstream bottleneck and reducing the congestion related accidents. Thus the objectives in this study were to analyze the traffic characteristics on the freeway I-94 with ramp metering system before/after ITS technology in Detroit (Michigan) area compare shifts of the traffic characteristics on the freeway I-94 before/after ITS technology and finally suggest a better ramp metering strategy for the freeway system The following results were obtained: i)Flow occupancies and speeds on the mainline merge section of freeway were shown to be a big difference depending on the peak periods areas and directions based on the distribution of traffic flow characteristics on the freeway. ii)Reduced speed was shown to be more than 5 mph and ramp flow was also shown to be more than 240 vph at peak periods if there was the ramp metering system constructed on the freeway. iii)Ramp metering system was shown to be optimally operated on the freeway if ramp flow could be maximized within the range of over 900 vph and reduced occupancy could be also maximized by no more than 2 percent at peak periods. iv)The average flows on the freeway after the ITS technology were shown to be a decrease of over 20% depending on the peak periods areas and directions when compared with those flow on the freeway before the ITS technology. over 20% depending on the peak periods areas and directions when compared with those speeds on the freeway before the ITS technology. vi)The average metering rates on the freeway after the ITS technology were shown to be an increase of over 10% depending on the peak periods areas and directions when compared with those metering rates on the freeway before the ITS technology.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.3D
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• pp.287-293
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• 2008

Density is used as the measure of effectiveness within the ramp junction influence area suggested in the KHCM 2005 in the LOS analysis of the ramp junction, and also density predictive models suggested in the KHCM 2005 is constructed based on the expressway with the speed limit of 100km/h or 110km/h in Korea. So, the density predictive models suggested in the KHCM 2005 are needed to verify if the models could be applied to the urban freeway with the speed limit of 80km/h or less, because the speed limits on most of the urban freeways in Korea are 80km/h or less. The purpose in this study is to construct and verify the appropriate density predictive model within the on-ramp merge influence area of the urban freeway by comparing with the USHCM 2000 and KHCM 2005 models.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.99-109
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• 2004

Most traffic congestion on a freeway occurs in the merge area, where conflicts between mainline traffic and on-ramp traffic are frequently generated. So far, research on the merge area has mainly dealt with free flow traffic and research on the congested traffic at the merge area is rare. This study investigates the relationships between mainline traffic and on-ramp traffic at three different segments of the merge area. For this purpose, new indicators based on such traffic variables as flow, speed, and density are used. The results show that a negative relationship exists between mainline and on-ramp flow. It is also found that the speed and the density of the right two lanes in the mainline traffic are significantly affected by the on-ramp flow. Based on the correlation analysis of the indicators, it is confirmed that the ramp influence area is the right two lanes of the freeway mainline. The revealed relationships between mainline and on-ramp traffic may help to analyze the capacity of the downstream freeway segment of the merging area in congested traffic. The findings of this studyalso provide a basis to develop a model that estimates the merge traffic volume in congested traffic, which is neither theoretically nor empirically sound in most other traffic flow models developed so far.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.95-100
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• 2002

The first version of KHCM was Published in 1992 and is currently used in engineering Practice extensively. The study of new manual was initiated by Korea Institute of Construction Technology 1998 and is intended to be ready for publication by the year 2002. According to the field survey, the action of the individual merging vehicle creates turbulence in the vicinity of the ramp-freeway junction area. The purpose of this paper is to develop the model for Predicting the for entering the lanes 1 and 2($V_{12}$) and the density function at the influence zone by comがring the research works on the ramp junction in the USHCM 2000. The methodology has two major steps : the determination of the flow entering Lanes 1 and 2 immediately upstream of the merge influence area: and the density of the flow within the ramp influence area As a result of this paper the specific functions for such models are suggested through the regression analysis of data collected at four freeway fields in Korea.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.25 no.2 s.95
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• pp.73-81
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• 2007

The purpose of this paper is to perform a basic study on the interaction between lanes, which can be achieved through analyzing traffic breakdown at the microscopic level. Using aerial photographic data for the microscopic analysis, this study analyzed the characteristics of traffic flow at a merging area. This research produced aggregated traffic data such as flows, speeds, and densities in 30 second intervals by lane for the macroscopic analysis and individual headway data by lane for the microscopic analysis. The paper contains an analysis of lane characteristics through flows, speeds, densities, and headway variations and also investigates the influence of ramp flows on mainline flows with space-time diagrams. Firstly, the merging area in this study is divided into three sections: before-merging, during-merging, and after-merging. The transition process was analyzed at each lane. Secondly, the breakdown was observed in detail with data divided in 50-foot units. The breakdown was checked through the relationships between ramp and freeway mainline flows, various techniques were proposed to analyze the breakdown, and the formation of breakdown was introduced as three stages in this study. In the near future, the findings of this study could contribute to determining the dynamic capacity on freeways by easily understanding changeable traffic breakdown patterns over time and space.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.195-205
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• 2001

The objective of the paper is to analyze the traffic characteristics for freeway merging area. Freeway merging area is different from basic section due to ramp vehicles. Therefore, to understand the traffic characteristics of (leeway merging area, this study focused on two factors including critical time headway required in merging maneuver and maximum possible merging volume. In this paper, new model that adopts critical time headway instead of critical time gap in calculating the maximum possible merging volume based on probability function was developed In previous studies, for calculating the maximum possible merging volume, it was considered that merging vehicles could merge freely if a given time gap was greater than the critical time gap. Also, the critical time gap was used as the same value in all traffic flow conditions. But, a time gap required in merging maneuver could be changed, even to the same driver, because difference of relative speed varies in different traffic flow conditions. So, in some cases, the critical time gap could be insufficient value in merging maneuver. Therefore, in this study. a calculating procedure for critical time headway in all traffic flow conditions was presented. Also, the maximum possible merging volume and capacity for freeway merging area were calculated by using the previously found critical time headway.