Date of Award

2016

Publisher

North Dakota State University

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Awarded

Master of Science (MS)

Program

Civil Engineering

Department

Civil and Environmental Engineering

College

Engineering

Faculty Advisor

Varma, Amiy

Description

The Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) provides methods to account for the impact of heavy vehicles in the operational assessment and design of signalized intersections. However, the overall impact of heavy vehicles on the saturation flow rate, an important parameter used to calculate capacity, is not fully understood, particularly in exclusive left-turn lanes, where little research has been conducted. This research explores the limitations of the HCM default values, procedures, and recommendations regarding heavy vehicles in protected exclusive left-turn movements at signalized intersections, and makes improvements for use by the traffic engineering professional community. Passenger car equivalency (PCE) values of 1.66, 1.93, and 3.01 were developed for small, medium, and large trucks, respectively, for protected exclusive left-turn movements at signalized intersections. These PCE values, based solely on field data collected in Fargo, North Dakota, are incorporated into a revised equation used to determine the heavy vehicle adjustment factor, fHV.

Rights

NDSU Policy 190.6.2

Rights Link

https://www.ndsu.edu/fileadmin/policy/190.pdf

Handle Identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/10365/28236

Download

Share

COinS