01475353

Component

This study analyses the characteristics of traffic flow when microcars are present. A two-lane cellular automata model is formulated to simulate a mixed traffic flow consisting of conventional passenger cars and microcars. Segments of urban highway and arterial road, both with two lanes and measuring 400 m in length, are simulated, including an intersection delay with a signal cycle at the midpoint of the latter. Traffic flows with different ratios of microcars are investigated in the simulation. Four aspects of traffic conditions are calculated: the number of lane changes, the number of decelerations, and the speed variation for analysis of safety and energy consumption as a measure of environmental impact. The simulation results provide several insights into the safety and environmental impact of introducing microcars. They suggest that microcars have no effect or a positive effect on safety when measured in terms of the number of decelerations and speed variation, both on highways and arterial roads. However, safety situation as measured in terms of lane changes is reduced. Vehicle emission will obviously decrease with the introduction of microcars, especially on highways. This is also true of arterial roads in free-stream flow, but the superiority of microcar diminishes in congested flow.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ANF20 Bicycle Transportation.

01470560

13-1480

English

15p

2013

Transportation Research Board 92nd Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References; Tables

Cellular automata; Environmental impacts; Miniature automobiles; Simulation; Traffic flow; Traffic safety; Vehicle mix

Energy; Environment; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Safety and Human Factors; I15: Environment; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2013 Paper #13-1480

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Feb 5 2013 12:23PM