Effects of Lane Width, Lane Position and Edge Shoulder Width on Driving Behavior in Underground Urban Expressways: A Driving Simulator Study

This study tested the effects of lane width, lane position and edge shoulder width on driving behavior for a three-lane underground urban expressway. A driving simulator was used with 24 volunteer test subjects. Five lane widths (2.85, 3.00, 3.25, 3.50, and 3.75 m) and three shoulder widths (0.50, 0.75, and 1.00 m) were studied. Driving speed, lane deviation and subjective perception of driving behavior were collected as performance measures. The results show that lane and shoulder width have significant effects on driving speed. Average driving speed increases from 60.01 km/h in the narrowest lane to 88.05 km/h in the widest lane. While both narrower lanes and shoulders result in reduced speed and lateral lane deviation, the effect of lane width is greater than that of shoulder width. When the lane and shoulder are narrow, drivers in the left or right lane tend to shy away from the tunnel wall, even encroaching into the neighboring middle lane. As the lane or shoulder gets wider, drivers tend to stay in the middle of the lane. An interesting finding is that although few participants acknowledged that lane position had any great bearing on their driving behaviors, the observed driving speed is statistically higher in the left lane than in the other two lanes when the lane width is narrow (in 2.85, 3 and 3.25 m lanes). These findings provided support for amending the current design specifications of urban underground roads, such as the relationship between design speed and lane width, speed limit, and combination form of lanes.