EFFECT OF VEHICLE CONNECTIVITY ON THE SAFETY PERFORMANCE OF FREEWAY ACCELERATION SPEED CHANGE LANES

One of the major concerns at the freeway entrance ramps is merging conflicts at the entrance ramp areas, which are highly prone to crashes according to past research. Ample length of speed change lanes (SCL) could provide enough time to SCL drivers, to search for a suitable gap and to adjust their speed to perform the merging action. In this research, two merging maneuvers were examined by considering the capabilities of connected vehicles (CVs) to make the merging process more comfortable, and thus safer. Probability of non-compliance (PNC) which is a measure of probability of SCL driver's uncomfortable merging was calculated considering the gap searching and acceleration behaviour in a connected vehicle environment. Variations in the PNC values when compared with regular vehicles and safety benefits of CVs were examined. Sensitivity analysis was performed to investigate the effect of change in each input parameter on the output PNC.