Development of Advanced Cruise-Assist Service for Safety and Smoothing Traffic Flow at a Merging Section on Expressway

Merging sections on expressways are the place of numerous traffic accidents and frequent congestion, because traffic conflict frequently occurs. This paper evaluates the possibility of applying two intelligent transportation systems (ITS) services at merging sections; two-step information provision service as a cruise-assist service for safety, and dynamic lane operation for efficiency. A driving simulator was used and human subject testing was done to evaluate the acceptability and effectiveness of the two-step information provision service. The dynamic variable lane operation service applicability was evaluated by performing trial calculations to assess the possibility of applying this service to expressways and its congestion reduction effects.