Traffic safety and mobility of roadway work zones have been considered to be one of the major concerns in highway traffic safety\r\nand operations in Florida. Dynamic lane merging (DLM) systemsââ?¬â?ITS-based lane management technologyââ?¬â?were introduced\r\nby several states in an attempt to enhance both safety and mobility of roadway work zones. Two forms of lane merging, namely,\r\nthe early merge and the late merge were designed to advise drivers on definite merging locations. Up to date, there are no studies\r\nthat contrast both merging schemes under matching work zone settings. This study simulates a two-to-one work zone lane closure\r\nconfiguration under three different Maintenance of Traffic (MOT) plans in VISSIM. The first MOT is the conventional plans used\r\nin Floridaââ?¬â?¢s work zones, the second MOT is a simplified dynamic early merging system (early SDLMS), and the third MOT is a\r\nsimplified dynamic late merging systems (late SDLMSs). Field data were collected to calibrate and validate the simulation models.\r\nSimulation results indicated that overall, under different levels of driversââ?¬â?¢ compliance rate and different percentages of trucks in\r\nthe traffic composition, the early SLDMS outperformed the conventional MOT and the late SDLMS in terms of travel times and\r\nthroughputs.
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