Follower density estimation on two-lane rural highways with passing lanes

The analyses of the level of service and the capacity provide subsidies to determine the supply of highways. The Highway Capacity Manual, in the 7th version (HCM-7), is the primary document for analyzing capacity and level of service worldwide. Therefore, adaptations must be made at the place of application due to traffic peculiarities that vary with the location, affecting behavioral and vehicular parameters. Thus, as its main objective, the present work had to propose a method to estimate the follower density ( FD ), a service measure used to analyze two-lane highways. The proposed method was based on traffic data produced with a simulator, the Aimsun Next, calibrated to the local conditions. For this, field data were collected on three two-lane highway segments with passing lanes located on BR -040 road. The results showed that the developed method in this paper produced FD values closer to those found in the field when compared to the values obtained with the HCM-7.