Effect of lane allocation on operational efficiency at weaving areas based on a cellular automaton model

The traffic weaving area is one of the key bottlenecks affecting the operation efficiency of an urban expressway system. The main motivation of this study is to explore the effects of lane allocation on the operational efficiency at weaving areas. A cellular automaton model was established, in which three different lane-changing rules were considered to match the driving behaviour when the lanes are allocated. Using the average vehicular travel time and the average velocity as the indicators, the operational performance of various lane allocation schemes was compared under different traffic and geometric conditions. A case study is used to validate and evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The results show that the benefits of the lane-allocation strategy are affected by the traffic flow, weaving volume ratio, weaving length, and installation location of the isolation facilities. The lane-allocation strategy has promising application under the conditions of a traffic flow that is >400 veh/ln, at weaving volume ratio between 0.2 and 0.7, and weaving length shorter than 300 m. Moreover, the isolation facilities should cover the weaving area when the lane-allocation strategy is used.