Tradeoffs among Free-flow Speed, Capacity, Cost, and Environmental Footprint in Highway Design

Chen Feng Ng and Kenneth Small

University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers from University of California Transportation Center

Abstract: This paper investigates differentiated design standards as a source of capacity additions that are more affordable and have smaller aesthetic and environmental impacts than modern expressways. We consider several tradeoffs, including narrow versus wide lanes and shoulders on an expressway of a given total width, and high-speed expressway versus lower-speed arterial. We quantify the situations in which off-peak traffic is sufficiently great to make it worthwhile to spend more on construction, or to give up some capacity, in order to provide very high off-peak speeds even if peak speeds are limited by congestion. We also consider the implications of differing accident rates. The results support expanding the range of highway designs that are considered when adding capacity to ameliorate urban road congestion.

Keywords: Engineering; highway design; capacity; free-flow speed; parkway (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-05-17
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene and nep-tre
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/1nz5904j.pdf;origin=repeccitec (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Tradeoffs among free-flow speed, capacity, cost, and environmental footprint in highway design (2012)
Working Paper: Tradeoffs among Free-flow Speed, Capacity, Cost, and Environmental Footprint in Highway Design (2008)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cdl:uctcwp:qt1nz5904j

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers from University of California Transportation Center Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Lisa Schiff ().