Defining and Stratifying Level-of-Service From a Multi-Modal Perspective

Agencies such as United States (US) Department of Transportation (DOT), state DOT’s, regional and local metropolitan planning organizations use level-of-service (LOS) analyses to guide project planning, for congestion management, to improve air quality, and to provide a better quality of life to transportation system users. While several studies have focused on LOS of vehicular traffic, a few have focused on LOS of pedestrians, bicycles, and transit (or public transportation) system. With increasing emphasis on alternate modes of transportation and multi-modal systems and no professionally accepted or scientifically valid technique available for practitioners, there is a need to define and stratify LOS from a multi-modal perspective. While LOS or values representing LOS of individual modes are disparate and cannot be combined directly, one may want to assign different weights to different modes of transportation. These weighting factors may differ based on the travel demand patterns in the study area. This paper focuses on addressing these issues and proposes a methodology to compute LOS from a multi-modal perspective. Multi-modal LOS is computed for selected isolated intersections using data collected at signalized intersections along a study corridor in the City of Charlotte located in the State of North Carolina, US to illustrate the working of the methodology and support the need for such a tool.