Safety and operational aspects of exclusive truck facilities

Summary/Abstract: Each year more than 40,000 people die as a result of highway crashes, and 1 in 8 of those fatalities involve commercial motor vehicles. USDOT has set an ambitious goal of a 50 percent reduction in truck-related facilities by the end of this decade. Meeting that goal will involve finding ways of improving the performance of all elements of the system – the driver, the roadway, and the vehicle. This research deals with the roadway aspect, by investigating the safety and operational aspects of exclusive truck facilities. Determining the need for truck facilities established criteria such as the vehicular volumes, safety elements, and financial feasibility. This paper only deals with the first two. The research approach developed level of service relationships using the simulation software VISSIM. The safety investigation consisted of an evaluation of crashes on the New Jersey Turnpike comparing car-only lanes with mixed flows of trucks and cars. Results of the safety investigation indicate that the crash rate in the outer lanes (mixed flow of cars and trucks) is almost double that in the inner lanes (cars only), given the same exposure. Although inconclusive, this outcome may indicate that truck traffic had an influence on crashes. Results of the operational analysis indicate that the capacity of a two-lane exclusive truck roadway under ideal conditions approaches 1,500 trucks (defined as 3-or more axle vehicles) per lane per hour.