01590683

Component

According to the Wisconsin Motorists’ Handbook, the proper way to merge onto a freeway is to enter the facility at the same speed that traffic is moving. Mainline traffic should move over to the next lane if no one is beside them to allow merging traffic to enter. The process of merging onto a freeway becomes complicated when construction work is occurring. Typically, there are reduced mainline lanes, reduced merging area, and limited sight distance. All of these issues may be complicated by the addition of a temporary YIELD sign at the freeway entrance ramp that is only in place during construction, as typically YIELD signs are not installed in this location. There is very little guidance on proper temporary YIELD sign use, and there are no studies that have evaluated the use of YIELD signs on entrance ramps. This research evaluated driver behavior at a specific freeway entrance ramp with a temporary yield condition during construction. The observations included one site with two different traffic control stages. The presence of the YIELD sign on the freeway entrance ramp that was observed did not appear to impact the driver behavior of the entrance ramp traffic, as no vehicles were observed yielding at this location. Vehicles that did yield were forced to yield near the end of the merging taper. Driver behavior for vehicles entering from the ramp, as well as mainline traffic, could be correlated with the volume of mainline traffic, but not with the volume of ramp traffic.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AHB55 Standing Committee on Work Zone Traffic Control.

01584066

16-3760

English

17p

2016

Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; Photos; References; Tables

Behavior; Drivers; Merging traffic; On ramps; Work zone traffic control; Yield signs; Yielding

Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; I73: Traffic Control

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2016 Paper #16-3760

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Jan 12 2016 5:38PM