Tomasz Szczuraszek

Assumptions to Application of Address Points as Traffic Zones in Modelling Travel in Cities

The paper presents the assumptions and construction of an innovative travel demand model, developed for the needs of traffic analysis in a small town in Poland, including prognostic analyses. In the model the classical division of the analysis area into transportation zones was abandoned, and instead the city’s address point database was used to define the origins and destinations not a transportation zones, but as specific buildings located in the analysed area. In addition to the description of exchange trips, the superior travel demand models of areas covering districts, provinces and the whole country were used. In the model, all forms of transport have been reconstituted: walking, cycling and public transport by train and bus. Verification of its correctness by GEH statistic comparing the traffic volume from traffic measurements against that obtained from the transport model proofed its correctness. In addition, the model was verified by statistical hypotheses about the compatibility of trip length distributions obtained from surveys of inhabitants and those from the model.

Analysis of Factors Affecting Non-compliance with the Red Light Signal at City Intersections Equipped with Traffic Signaling

The main causes of road collisions in Polish cities include disrespecting the priority of way rule and failing to keep safe distance between vehicles, however, according to statistics, running a red signal is another common cause of road accidents (the cause of 3.9% accidents and 1.6% collisions). The authors of this study have made an attempt to identify the factors which condition this kind of behavior and the degree of non-compliance with the traffic signaling by traffic users, including drivers, cyclists and pedestrians. Research was conducted for each group of the road users. Investigations of incidents connected with going/driving through a red signal were conducted. The total number of road users of the analyzed traffic stream, the number of persons who failed to comply with traffic signaling, their gender and age, traffic conditions as well as time that has passed since traffic signaling turned on until running a red signal. The tests results show that it is the amount the time the motorist have to spend waiting to leave an intersection has the largest influence on non-compliance with traffic signaling.

The Impact of the Analysis Period on the Estimation Accuracy of Queue Lengths at Intersection Inlets with Traffic Lights

In this article, the authors described the problem of determining the traffic conditions at intersections with traffic lights in the state of traffic oversaturation. Based on their own research results gathered at three intersections in different traffic density states, an accuracy analysis was conducted for vehicle queue lengths calculation at the inlets of those intersections during various assumed sampling periods. The authors also conducted an accuracy evaluation of the estimation of vehicle queue lengths by means of several theoretical methods used in the USA, Germany, Great Britain, Australia, Canada, and Poland. That evaluation shows that in the case of traffic oversaturation states that last longer, errors in estimation using those methods are significant, regardless of the assumed sampling length. Based on the results of analyzing the obtained errors, the authors suggest assuming the maximal sampling time of a 15-min interval, while they recommend a 5-min one.