Phase II Investigation of Safety at Toll Plazas Using Driving Simulation

Knodler, Michael A.; Hajiseyedjavadi, Foroogh · 2018 · ROSA P / Safety Research Using Simulation (SAFER-SIM) University Transportation Center

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Summary

This study investigates driver behavior and safety at toll plazas using a full-scale driving simulation to analyze how specific environmental factors influence lane choice. The research was motivated by the need to understand human decision-making processes in controlled settings, which is difficult to achieve through field studies where variables cannot be isolated. The findings aim to improve toll plaza designs for safety and enhance parameters in microsimulation software like VISSIM. The experiment utilized a Realtime Technologies Inc. (RTI) SimCreator fixed-base driving simulator at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Twenty licensed drivers participated, each completing 20 scenarios modeled after the West Springfield toll plaza. The study manipulated five independent variables: lane configuration (grouping of E-ZPass and cash lanes), origin-destination ramps, traffic queues, traffic composition (presence of a leading heavy vehicle), and customer type (cash vs. E-ZPass). Data were collected via an ASL mobile eye tracker to record gaze patterns and through experimenter observation of lane choices. Statistical analysis included conditional logit tests to determine variable significance and pairwise Wilcoxon tests for scenario comparisons. The results indicate that drivers exhibit a strong preference for lanes closer to the right edge of the roadway, regardless of payment type. In cash scenarios, the presence of a traffic queue had a statistically significant effect on lane choice, prompting drivers to switch to farther lanes to avoid delays. In E-ZPass scenarios, origin-destination pairs significantly influenced lane selection, with drivers more likely to switch lanes upstream if entering from the left and exiting to the right. While conditional logit tests did not find a significant effect for leading trucks, pairwise Wilcoxon tests confirmed that the presence of a slow-moving heavy vehicle significantly altered lane choices. Eye-tracking data revealed that drivers facing queues glanced more frequently at alternative lanes, indicating increased cognitive workload when deciding between a closer lane with a queue and a farther lane without one. The study concludes that toll plaza designs minimizing lane changes and incentives to switch lanes enhance safety. Grouping lanes with the same tolling system together reduces collision severity but may increase conflict frequency due to weaving maneuvers. An all-E-ZPass design was identified as the safest configuration, followed by designs using combo lanes. Separating cash and E-ZPass lanes was found to be the third-safest option. These insights provide empirical evidence for optimizing toll plaza geometry and improving behavioral models in traffic simulation software.

Key finding

Queues significantly affect cash customer lane choice, origin-destination significantly affects E-ZPass customer lane choice, and drivers consistently prefer right-side lanes while showing increased glance frequency at alternative lanes when queues are present.

Methodology

simulator

Sample size: 20

Provenance

The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via bulk_ingest_rosap on 2026-05-23 (6 acquisition events logged).

Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.

Topics

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• work zones
• traffic density
• simulator sickness

Information type

What kind of knowledge this paper contributes, grouped by family — independent of topic (what it is about) and method (how it was studied).

• Empirical Findings: behavioral performance data
• Methodological Resource: tool software
• Theoretical Contribution: computational model