Delay Model for Planning Analysis of Main-Line Toll Plazas

Abstract

Main-line toll plazas are major bottlenecks on toll roads. The capacity and level-of-service analysis of these facilities, however, have not been addressed by the various versions of the Highway Capacity Manual. Traffic operations at toll plazas can be realistically analyzed through computer simulation, but there is a need for a simple analytical delay model that can provide quick and reasonably accurate estimates to help with the planning of toll plazas. Such a delay model is formulated and calibrated on the basis of simulation results. For volume to capacity ratios below 1.4, discrepancies between the estimates obtained from this delay model and from computer simulation are mostly less than 10 percent.