Development of frontage road yield treatment analysis tool (FRYTAT) database software.

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) sponsored Project 0-4986, “An Assessment of Frontage Road Yield Treatments,” to assess the effectiveness of a wide variety of frontage road–exit ramp and frontage road–U-turn yield treatments that exist in Texas. Toward this goal, simulation modeling procedures compensated for the impracticability of the data collection effort that would be required to compile every possible combination of volume, geometry, and yield treatment types. Researchers ran several thousand simulations and generated significant numbers of measures of performance and comparative analysis. Researchers, in consultation with TxDOT, sought to develop a database software tool to incorporate all the results obtained from the initial research. This will provide TxDOT staff with a more useful tool in determining appropriate yield treatments at exit ramp/U-turn and frontage road merge areas. This report summarizes the work completed during the extension year, which resulted in the development of the Frontage Road Yield Treatment Analysis Tool (FRYTAT). The report briefly summarizes the interaction and coordination between the TxDOT panel and the Texas Transportation Institute research team, describes the development of the main framework of the tool, and illustrates the final product, FRYTAT.