Piti ROTWANNASIN
Transportation Research Laboratory
Department of Civil Engineering,
Chulalongkorn University, 10330 Thailand

Kasem CHOOCHARUKUL, Ph.D.
Transportation Research Laboratory
Department of Civil Engineering
Chulalongkorn University, 10330 Thailand

ABSTRACT

In recent years, truck traffic on Thailand’s highways has significantly increased, essentially due to the growth in national economics. The obvious impact of such an escalation of truck composition in traffic stream is therefore the conflicts between trucks and passenger cars. This problem has given rise to many concerns in terms of both highway capacity and traffic safety. Truck lane restriction represents a potential strategy that is intended to reduce vehicular conflict and facilitate traffic flow. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of truck lane restriction on highway traffic. A six-lane divided highway with merging section was focused in the present study.  A traffic simulation model PARAMICS was used as a tool to investigate various traffic flow elements that could cause conflicts of trucks and cars. Several scenarios are tested in this study in order to determine the speed, density, and number of lane changes under three types of truck lane configurations, i.e., restricting trucks on the left lane, restricting trucks on the middle lane, and restricting trucks on the right lane. A sensitivity analysis was conducted for several traffic variables, including traffic volume, percentage of truck, and the presence or absence of truck lane restriction. ANOVA was used to determine significant differences in traffic flow elements when truck lane restriction strategy was applied.