CAPACITY, SPEED, AND PLATOONING VEHICLE EQUIVALENTS FOR TWO-LANE RURAL HIGHWAYS (DISCUSSION ANDD CLOSURE)

Passenger car equivalents (pce's), derived for purposes of capacity, speed, and platooning analyses, are examined using literature sources and traffic data analyzed for 37 different two-lane rural highway sites in Ontario. Speed pce's for trucks and recreational vehicles were found to be considerably higher than those presently used for most types of standard capacity analyses. Truck pce values were found to be 11.4, 6.1, and 3.8 for the 10th, 50th, and 90th percentile speeds, respectively. Corresponding pce values for recreational vehicles were determined as 3.9, 3.7, and 2.6, and the opposing direction pce was found to be 0.5 for all percentiles. The relative effects of trucks and recreational vehicles, in terms of the creation of platoon followers, were found to be much smaller than the corresponding equivalents for speed. Platoon follower pce's for trucks, recreational vehicles, and opposing direction vehicles were 1.23, 1.23, and 0.06 for low traffic volumes and 1.20, 1.07, and 0.07 for high traffic volumes. Platoon leader pce's were 1.55 for recreational vehicles, and 2.0 and 1.35 for trucks on recreational and commuter routes, respectively.