Performance Comparison of Various Chicane Types: A Driving Simulator Study

Abstract

Urban streets are becoming noisy, less safe and unattractive places due to high traffic volumes and vehicular speeds. Especially, high speeds causes many problems such as traffic accidents, noise, etc. To prevent these problems and negative effects of speeding, traffic calming measures have been widely used in many developed countries. In this study, the effectiveness of ten most common chicane types on speed limit compliance were examined by comparing and ranking chicanes according to their performance. For this purpose, a Safety Index was developed and an Ordinary Least Square Regression analysis was performed to identify safest chicane types for undivided two-lane and divided four-lane roads by using various parameters. Additionally, statistical tests were conducted to determine the most important driver characteristics of drivers before and inside the chicanes. For the analyses, all necessary data were obtained from the driving tests of 106 volunteers using a driving simulator. For the simulation scenarios, Akdeniz University's (Antalya/Turkey) campus roads were selected as a case area. The results showed that Chicane Types 2 (CT-2) and 7 (CT-7) have the highest Safety Index values (0.69 and 0.98) and they were found to be the most proper CTs for the undivided and divided roads, respectively. From the statistical tests, it was also found that education level, gender and driving license duration were found to be the statistically significant parameters on speed choice for the most proper chicane types. Additionally, it was concluded that the most important driver characteristics are determined as age (has a negative effect) and gender (to be male has a positive effect) of drivers before and inside the chicanes. All these findings show that the investigation of different CTs has a great potential to reduce speeds and ensure safety in urban minor roads to limit vehicle speeds.