Management of Multi-Lane Highways in Jordan (Case Study)

Transportation industry is basically a service sector component. It is of important concern for traffic engineers and planners to understand and evaluate the quality of service provided by transport facilities. Highway Capacity Manual (HCM), with all its revisions since 1950, is the pioneer document in this area. It quantified the concept of capacity for a transport facility and laid the foundations for estimating the level of service (LOS) being provided by that facility to its users. This study is concerned with traffic and highway management through evaluating and improving a multi-lane highway in Jordan. It was conducted on Amman-Jerash multi-lane rural highway as a case study. The highway is considered as a major arterial highway with high traffic volume in Jordan. The traffic data was collected from the government records at several departments in the Ministry of Public Works and Housing during summer in the year 2014. HCS-2000 and HCS-2010 software were used to evaluate the level of service (LOS) for the existing condition (year 2014), short-term condition (year 2019) and mid-term condition (year 2024). The evaluation shows that some of the highway segments are operating at LOS-E or LOS-F for short-term and mid-term conditions. The highway segments that operated at LOS-E or LOS-F for short-term or mid-term conditions were improved by modifying the geometric and traffic conditions in order to operate the highway on better LOS, such as LOS-C or LOS-D. Management flow diagrams were prepared to help decision makers make use of a guide planning program for all rural multi-lane highways in Jordan.