Resilience Assessment of Expressway During Incident Case study: Application of Reversible Lane

Abstract

Incidents are considered significant factors that may substantially reduce traffic efficiency. Therefore, incident management and traffic resilience after occurrences are essential to maintain continuity and minimize potential impacts. This research focuses on studying the implementation of reversible lanes to enhance traffic system resilience during incidents, with the objective of evaluating the recovery efficiency of traffic on the Chalong Rat Expressway section featuring reversible lanes, while comparing it with other incident management strategies. This study employed Aimsun Next software to simulate scenarios to determine lane closure protocols following incidents and to test lane management approaches. A total of four scenarios were simulated: Scenario 1 - No intervention (Do nothing), Scenario 2 - Control measures preventing shoulder driving, Scenario 3 - Implementation of reversible lanes during incidents, and Scenario 4 - Implementation of reversible lanes with shoulder driving control measures. Data analysis in this research evaluated performance using two primary indicators: Average Speed and the Deficit Area of the graph, which reflects the cumulative impact of accidents. The findings revealed that the implementation of reversible lanes (Scenario 3) provided the most efficient traffic recovery, with the lowest deficit area value of 1,108.50 km·hr/min compared to other measures, which had higher deficit areas as follows: Scenario 4 (1,928.26) Scenario 1 (2,075.57) and Scenario 2 (2,323.02) respectively. The utilization of reversible lanes demonstrated a significant reduction in incident impact, illustrating the potential to enhance the capacity of traffic systems to recover following accidents. These findings will contribute to the development of expressway management strategies by considering the application of reversible lanes to increase flexibility and efficiency in incident management on expressways.