Modelling of traffic safety of traditional mainline toll plazas

Abstract

Freeways and expressways are considered an important part of any successful transportation system. These facilities carry the majority of daily trips on the transportation network. Although expressways (Toll Roads) offer high level of service, and are considered the safest among other types of roads, traditional toll plazas may have both safety and operational challenges. The traditional toll facilities still experience many crashes, many of which are severe. Therefore, the main focus of this paper is to evaluate the effect of tollbooths’ number and types (i.e. cashier lanes, coin lanes and Electronic Toll Collections (ETC) lanes) on safety performance at traditional toll plazas. The literature showed that about 30 to 40 percent of the total crashes on expressways occur at these facilities. An extensive data collection was conducted that included 42 traditional mainline toll plazas located on approximately 750 miles of expressways in Florida, and multiple analytical techniques were used. Based on the finding in this paper, choosing locations for the toll plazas that have safe distances from the interchanges, installing flashing lights at night time, and finding ways to improve signage and road marking are potential means of reducing lane changes before tollbooths. More research is needed and researchers may build on the results of this study.