Evaluating Horizontal Alignment Design Consistency of Two-Lane Rural Highways: Development of New Procedure

Design consistency refers to the condition wherein the roadway geometry does not violate driver expectations. Operating-speed profile models are used to evaluate the consistency of a design by identifying locations with large speed variability between successive design elements. There is a direct correlation between safety and variability in speeds. Recent operating-speed models predict the 85th percentile speeds on horizontal curves and compare this value with the expected 85th percentile speed on the approach tangent. There is a direct correlation between speed variability between successive design elements and crash rates. Eighty-fifth percentile speeds, however, do not necessarily represent the speed reductions experienced by drivers. The primary objective of the research was to assess the efficacy of the use of 85th percentile speed by operating-speed profile models to evaluate the consistency of a design. Speed data were collected at 21 horizontal curve sites. These data were used to evaluate the implication of using 85th percentile speed for evaluating design consistency. A new parameter was investigated for analyzing design consistency: the 85th percentile maximum reduction in speed (85MSR). This parameter is calculated by using each driver’s speed profile from an approach tangent through a horizontal curve and determining the maximum speed reduction each driver experiences. These maximum speed reductions are sorted, and the 85th percentile value becomes the statistic of interest, or 85MSR. 85MSR was compared with the difference in 85th percentile speeds (85S), and it was found that 85MSR is significantly larger than 85S. The data showed that, on average, 85MSR is approximately two times larger than 85S. Models were developed that predict 85MSR as a function of geometric design elements, and these models could be used to complement existing operating-speed models.