Cumulative lateral position: a new measure for driver performance in curves

Vehicle control can be described with lateral and longitudinal control measures. The Standard Deviation of Lateral Position (SDLP) is probably the most common measure to reflect lateral control. Indices such as mean Lateral Position (MLP) and Time-to-Line Crossing (TLC) have also been used to describe driver behaviour. Even though all these measures have demonstrated their value, in some specific cases, these measures may indicate that driver behaviour is deteriorated while that may not necessarily be the case. When negotiating curves for example, most drivers prefer to not to follow the centre of the lane. We propose a new index, called the Cumulative Lateral Position (CLP), an index that does not suffer from drawbacks of the earlier mentioned measures in these conditions. We also applied the CLP in a practical case. In a simulator experiment drivers negotiated three types of curves: traditional circular (CIR), clothoid (CLO), and a new curve, a polynomial curve with continuous curvature (CON). Results show that the CLP index, unlike the older measures, is able to well summarise the trajectory on a road curve and is sensitive in distinguishing different driving behaviour with respect to variations in road geometry, even in cases where these differences are small. The proposed methodology can be used to evaluate both new and existing roads design solutions, and showed in this experiment that driving behaviour was safest in the continuous curve

Use of Heading Direction for Recreating the Horizontal Alignment of an Existing Road

This article proposes a new method for fit- ting the horizontal alignment of a road to a set of (x, y) points. Those points can be obtained from digital im- agery or GPS-data collection. Unlike current methods that represent road alignment through its curvature, the proposed method describes the horizontal alignment as a sequence of headings. An analytic–heuristic approach is introduced. The proposed method produces unique solu- tions even for complex horizontal alignments. Some ex- amples and a case study are presented. This solution may not be accurate enough for road redesign, but it allows researchers and departments of transportation to obtain accurate geometric featuresCamacho Torregrosa, FJ.; Pérez Zuriaga, AM.; Campoy Ungria, JM.; García García, A.; Tarko, A. (2015). Use of Heading Direction for Recreating the Horizontal Alignment of an Existing Road. Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering. 30(4):282-299. doi:10.1111/mice.12094S282299304Awuah-Baffour, R., Sarasua, W., Dixon, K. K., Bachman, W., & Guensler, R. (1997). Global Positioning System with an Attitude: Method for Collecting Roadway Grade and Superelevation Data. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 1592(1), 144-150. doi:10.3141/1592-17Ben-Arieh, D., Chang, S., Rys, M., & Zhang, G. (2004). Geometric Modeling of Highways Using Global Positioning System Data andB-Spline Approximation. Journal of Transportation Engineering, 130(5), 632-636. doi:10.1061/(asce)0733-947x(2004)130:5(632)Bosurgi, G., & D’Andrea, A. (2012). A Polynomial Parametric Curve (PPC-CURVE) for the Design of Horizontal Geometry of Highways. Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering, 27(4), 304-a312. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8667.2011.00750.xCai, H., & Rasdorf, W. (2008). Modeling Road Centerlines and Predicting Lengths in 3-D Using LIDAR Point Cloud and Planimetric Road Centerline Data. Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering, 23(3), 157-173. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8667.2008.00518.xCastro, M., Iglesias, L., Rodríguez-Solano, R., & Sánchez, J. A. (2006). Geometric modelling of highways using global positioning system (GPS) data and spline approximation. Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, 14(4), 233-243. doi:10.1016/j.trc.2006.06.004Dong, H., Easa, S. M., & Li, J. (2007). Approximate Extraction of Spiralled Horizontal Curves from Satellite Imagery. Journal of Surveying Engineering, 133(1), 36-40. doi:10.1061/(asce)0733-9453(2007)133:1(36)Easa, S. M., Dong, H., & Li, J. (2007). Use of Satellite Imagery for Establishing Road Horizontal Alignments. Journal of Surveying Engineering, 133(1), 29-35. doi:10.1061/(asce)0733-9453(2007)133:1(29)Hummer , J. E. Rasdorf , W. J. Findley , D. J. Zegeer , C. V. Sundstrom , C. A. 2010 Procedure for Curve Warning Signing, Delineation, and Advisory Speeds for Horizontal Curves http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/38000/38400/38476/2009--07finalreport.pdfImran, M., Hassan, Y., & Patterson, D. (2006). GPS-GIS-Based Procedure for Tracking Vehicle Path on Horizontal Alignments. Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering, 21(5), 383-394. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8667.2006.00444.xLi, Z., Chitturi, M. V., Bill, A. R., & Noyce, D. A. (2012). Automated Identification and Extraction of Horizontal Curve Information from Geographic Information System Roadway Maps. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2291(1), 80-92. doi:10.3141/2291-10Othman, S., Thomson, R., & Lannér, G. (2012). Using Naturalistic Field Operational Test Data to Identify Horizontal Curves. Journal of Transportation Engineering, 138(9), 1151-1160. doi:10.1061/(asce)te.1943-5436.0000408Zuriaga, A. M. P., García, A. G., Torregrosa, F. J. C., & D’Attoma, P. (2010). Modeling Operating Speed and Deceleration on Two-Lane Rural Roads with Global Positioning System Data. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2171(1), 11-20. doi:10.3141/2171-02Roh, T.-H., Seo, D.-J., & Lee, J.-C. (2003). An accuracy analysis for horizontal alignment of road by the kinematic GPS/GLONASS combination. KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering, 7(1), 73-79. doi:10.1007/bf02841990Shafahi, Y., & Bagherian, M. (2012). A Customized Particle Swarm Method to Solve Highway Alignment Optimization Problem. Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering, 28(1), 52-67. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8667.2012.00769.xTsai, Y. (James), Wu, J., Wang, Z., & Hu, Z. (2010). Horizontal Roadway Curvature Computation Algorithm Using Vision Technology. Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering, 25(2), 78-88. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8667.2009.00622.

Identification of Transition Curves in Vehicular Roads and Railways

In the paper attention is focused on the necessity to systematize the procedure for determining the shape of transition curves used in vehicular roads and railway routes. There has been presented a universal method of identifying curvature in transition curves by using differential equations. Curvature equations for such known forms of transitioncurves as clothoid, quartic parabola, the Bloss curve, cosinusoid and sinusoid, have been worked out and by the use these equations it was possible to determine some appropriate Cartesian coordinates. In addition some approximate solutions obtained in consequence of making certain simplifying assumptions orientated mainly towards railway routes, have been provided. Notice has been taken of limitations occurring in the application of smooth transition curves in railway systems, which can be caused by very small values of the horizontal ordinates in the initial region. This problem has provided an inspiration for finding a new family of the so-called parametric transition curves, being more advantageous not only over the clothoid but also over cubic parabola as far as dynamics is concerned

An automatic method for generating multiple alignment alternatives for a railway bypass

This paper deals with the problem of designing a bypass on a railway line. Based on a geometrical model capable of determining automatically the need of major structures (bridges, tunnels, overpasses and underpasses), the optimal design of a railway bypass is formulated in the framework of Mixed Integer Non Linear Programming (MINLP), and it is solved with a numerical algorithm which provides different layout alternatives that are optimal solutions (local minima) from the economic point of view. The proposed method is tested on a case study with the aim of showing its practical usefulness as a support tool for engineers in order to accomplish the complex and time-consuming task to generate a set of initial alternatives for the design of a railway bypassThis research was funded by Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Spain) grant number TED2021-129324B-I00, and by the collaboration agreement between Xunta de Galicia (Spain) and Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (Spain) which regulates the Specialization Campus “Campus Terra”. Additionally, the authors are grateful to Concello de Guitiriz (Spain) for financial support through the contract Optimal design of multiple alignment alternatives for a bypass on the railway line A Coruña-Palencia passing through Parga-Guitiriz (Lugo), ref. 2021-CP138 . Finally, third and fourth authors thank the support given by Xunta de Galicia (Spain) under research projects ref. ED341D R2016/023 and GI-1563ED431C2021/15, respectivelyS

What variables affect to a greater extent the driver's vision while driving?

This paper deals with the analysis of the main variables involved in the visual activity of a driver of motor vehicles, in order to identify the most important quantities and implement, therefore, appropriate corrective actions to the achievement of road safety. The first step in this research was to survey a number of variables within the road environment and processing this data base with clustering techniques in order to extract useful information for purpose. In this case, a mixture of procedures based on Fuzzy Logic (FL) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) were applied not only to extract knowledge not known a priori but, above all, to define the membership functions and rules of the fuzzy model without recourse to the skills of the analyst, not always so objective. This procedure, applied to a rural road open to traffic, showed a good performance in predicting the user's visual behavior and, especially, in identifying the most influential variables. This aspect may allow the agency to direct the maintenance operations so that to facilitate understanding of the information contained within the road environment, thus improving safety

DEVELOPMENT AND CALIBRATION OF A GLOBAL GEOMETRIC DESIGN CONSISTENCY MODEL FOR TWO-LANE RURAL HIGHWAYS, BASED ON THE USE OF CONTINUOUS OPERATING SPEED PROFILES

Road safety is one of the most important problems in our society. It causes hundreds of fatalities every year worldwide. A road accident may be caused by several concurrent factors. The most common are human and infrastructure. Their interaction is important too, which has been studied in-depth for years. Therefore, there is a better knowledge about the driving task. In several cases, these advances are still not included in road guidelines. Some of these advances are centered on explaining the underlying cognitive processes of the driving task. Some others are related to the analysis of drivers’ response or a better estimation of road crashes. The concept of design consistency is related to all of them. Road design consistency is the way how road alignment fits drivers’ expectancies. Hence, drivers are surprised at inconsistent roads, presenting a higher crash risk potential. This PhD presents a new, operating speed-based global consistency model. It is based on the analysis of more than 150 two-lane rural homogeneous road segments of the Valencian Region (Spain). The final consistency parameter was selected as the combination of operational parameters that best estimated the number of crashes. Several innovative auxiliary tools were developed for this process. One example is a new tool for recreating the horizontal alignment of two-lane rural roads by means of an analytic-heuristic process. A new procedure for determining road homogeneous segments was also developed, as well as some expressions to accurately determine the most adequate design speed. The consistency model can be integrated into safety performance functions in order to estimate the amount of road crashes. Finally, all innovations are combined into a new road design methodology. This methodology aims to complement the existing guidelines, providing to road safety a continuum approach and giving the engineers tools to estimate how safe are their road designs.Camacho Torregrosa, FJ. (2015). DEVELOPMENT AND CALIBRATION OF A GLOBAL GEOMETRIC DESIGN CONSISTENCY MODEL FOR TWO-LANE RURAL HIGHWAYS, BASED ON THE USE OF CONTINUOUS OPERATING SPEED PROFILES [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/48543TESI

Proceedings of the 2nd Conference on Production Systems and Logistics (CPSL 2021)

Proceedings of the CPSL 202

Advanced Testing and Characterization of Bituminous Materials, Two Volume Set

Bituminous materials are used to build durable roads that sustain diverse environmental conditions. However, due to their complexity and a global shortage of these materials, their design and technical development present several challenges. Advanced Testing and Characterisation of Bituminous Materials focuses on fundamental and performance testin

Advanced Testing and Characterization of Bituminous Materials, Two Volume Set

Bituminous materials are used to build durable roads that sustain diverse environmental conditions. However, due to their complexity and a global shortage of these materials, their design and technical development present several challenges. Advanced Testing and Characterisation of Bituminous Materials focuses on fundamental and performance testin