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Browsing by Author "Carmody, John C."

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    The Effect of Centerline Treatments on Driving Performance
    (2002-03-01) Harder, Kathleen A.; Carmody, John C.; Bloomfield, John
    In pursuit of unimpeded high peak traffic flow, the Design Guidelines for Super Two Highways (Ekern, 1998) suggested several treatments for the right side of roadway. But the left side is where drivers experience great speed-differentials between their own vehicles and oncoming traffic. Harder, Carmody, and Bloomfield examined centerline treatments and possible recommendations for Super Two guidelines. The current US standard (12-foot lane / 4-inch dashes) was compared with combinations of wider lanes, wider dashes, and buffer areas. With each of the centerline treatments examined, participants kept the left side of the vehicle in the approximate center of the lane. All treatments resulted in shifting the center of the lane farther from the centerline than it was in the standard condition. Two conditions appear to be most effective in keeping drivers away from the centerline: 1) 14-foot lanes with both longitudinal rumble strips and 4-inch wide dashes marking the centerline, and 2) 12-foot lanes with 4-foot buffer marked by 4-inch wide dashes. However, implementing any of the centerline treatments should result in vehicles driving farther from the centerline, thus making it less likely that drivers will meet an oncoming vehicle. Data was gathered in a driving simulator. Further testing should be conducted in real driving situations.
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    Investigating the Effects of Traffic Calming Strategies on Driver Behavior
    (2002-01-01) Harder, Kathleen A.; Carmody, John C.
    In this project, researchers investigated whether the results obtained in a before-and-after traffic calming experiment conducted in a driver simulator paralleled a real world before-and-after traffic calming study. The project also involved determining whether or not targeted traffic calming strategies resulted in reduced driving speeds. The report details the results of two simulator experiments on traffic calming. The first experiment examined traffic calming devices already installed on the stretch of Franklin Avenue between Chicago Avenue and Hiawatha Avenue in Minneapolis. A parallel before-and-after study occurred on the actual roadway. The second experiment examined the effects on driver speed of adding median islands, chokers, and plantings in a residential environment. Taken together, the two experiments show that the use of median islands, chokers, and planters are likely to produce measurable reductions in traffic speed. The report recommends further research to discover how the specific placement or spacing of traffic calming elements would affect traffic speed. Further, the results obtained with the driving simulator parallel the direction of results obtained in the real world study of the urban environment of Franklin Avenue.