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An investigation of lane utilisation on Turkish highways, Page 1 of 2

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This paper, being the first report on ‘lane utilisation on Turkish highways’, explores some of the unconventional characteristics of multilane traffic flows. As in many developing countries, the discipline of lane-based driving in Turkey is fairly weak. Possible reasons for this problem are different driving attitudes, poor road surface, poorly maintained lane markings, and the non-existence of studs on lane lines. The possible consequences of the problem, thus, could be loss of safety, difficult traffic management, inapplicability of conventional lane-based models, etc. Findings revealed that lateral positions of vehicles within the lane were more disorderly when compared with developed countries, where a normal distribution can be used. Regarding the distribution of vehicles over the lanes, the results in general were significantly different from the existing diagrams of some European highways. The proportion of traffic exhibited totally opposite trends for the median and shoulder lanes in Turkey, especially with wider shoulders. Whereas using the shoulder provided some extra capacity, along with some disadvantages, highways with no shoulders discharged less traffic than their counterparts from the developed world. Therefore, the present paper is thought to be the first step of the research into the problem of untidiness.