Department of Transportation and Logistics Management, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan, ROC.
Department of Transportation and Logistics Management, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan, ROC.
Accid Anal Prev. 2022 Jul;172:106682. doi: 10.1016/j.aap.2022.106682. Epub 2022 Apr 28.
The design of travel lane configuration and lane width is crucial to traffic safety, especially in an urban mixed traffic environment where Powered-Two-Wheelers (PTWs) are prevalent and share the same roads with larger vehicles such as cars, buses, and trucks. However, there have been limited studies on the effects of the design of travel lane configuration and lane width on safety in such a mixed traffic environment. It's true the above-mentioned research question can be evaluated simply in terms of the number of crashes. However, doing so not only requires a few years of crash and traffic data, but limited insight can be gained in terms of how driver and rider behaviours are affected, and this has implications for further improvement in road safety. This study examines the changes in driving/riding behaviours and surrogate events before and after the adjustments of travel lane configuration and lane width by proposing a micro perspective approach as a complement to conventional studies. A before-and-after site-based investigation was conducted at two study sites which had opposite adjustments for travel lane configuration and lane widths: at one site the number of lanes was reduced, thereby widening the lane width in the outer lane on one road section, and at the second site the number of lanes was increased, thereby narrowing lane width in the outer lane on the other road section. The results showed that an increase in lane width resulted in a considerable increase in the number of speeding events as well as unsafe driving/riding behaviours and surrogate events related to lane splitting, lane sharing, and overtaking.
行车道配置和车道宽度的设计对交通安全至关重要，特别是在城市混合交通环境中，电动两轮车（PTWs）普遍存在，与汽车、公共汽车和卡车等大型车辆共享道路。然而，对于在这种混合交通环境中行车道配置和车道宽度设计对安全的影响，研究有限。诚然，上述研究问题可以简单地根据事故数量来评估。但是，这样做不仅需要几年的事故和交通数据，而且在驾驶员和骑手行为如何受到影响方面，获得的见解有限，这对进一步提高道路安全水平有影响。本研究通过提出微观视角方法来补充传统研究，考察了行车道配置和车道宽度调整前后驾驶/骑行行为和替代事件的变化。在两个研究点进行了基于地点的前后调查，这两个研究点的行车道配置和车道宽度进行了相反的调整：在一个研究点，减少了车道数量，从而在外车道上拓宽了车道宽度，在另一个研究点，增加了车道数量，从而在外车道上缩小了车道宽度。结果表明，车道宽度的增加导致超速事件以及与车道变道、车道共享和超车相关的不安全驾驶/骑行行为和替代事件的数量显著增加。
