Delays Caused by Trucks on Multilane Freeways: Impacts of Overtaking Bans for Trucks

This paper presents a framework for estimating the delay caused by trucks on multilane freeways. The flow of trucks is modeled as a renewal process where each truck disturbs traffic as per Newell's kinematic wave theory of moving bottlenecks. Two types of trucks-- light and heavy--are considered. The cases where the demand exceeds capacity and where demand is less than capacity are treated explicitly in order to recognize that even in the latter case delays may occur. The model is applied to estimate the impact of introducing a overtaking ban for trucks on uphill bottlenecks. It is found that delays are reduced even for trucks because the ban increases bottleneck capacity. These results are consistent with empirical evidence.