Adaptação do HCM-6 para análise de rodovias de pista simples sem faixas adicionais no Brasil

Abstract

The Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) is one of the main documents used to analyze the level of service and capacity of road components around the world. However, the application of its methodology without adjusting local traffic conditions, roads, and vehicles and drivers’ characteristics can result in discrepancies between performance measures calculated from the manual methodology and those observed in the field. In Brazil, several studies have shown that the HCM method underestimates the level of service if local particularities are not considered. The 6th edition of the manual will bring a new methodology for the analysis of two-lane highways. This new methodology is expected to be based on the Final Report for NCHRP Project 17-65 developed by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program. According to this report, the level of service of two-lane highways will be determined by analyzing the follower density (FD) measure. In this context, the objective of this work was to adjust the new HCM-6 method - whose preliminary description can be found in the NCHRP Project 17-65 Report - to the conditions of Brazilian two-lane highways without climbing lanes. Thus, based on field data collected in previous studies, a sensitivity analysis was performed to determine the most relevant calibration parameters of the Aimsun Next traffic simulator. Once the simulator is calibrated, simulation results were obtained for hypothetical segments to adjust traffic models to obtain FD, according to the structure proposed in NCHRP Project 17-65, so that they represent the data observed in the field. The results of FD showed that the HCM traffic models need adjustments to be applied to evaluate Brazilian two-lane highways without climbing lanes, in order to avoid underestimated levels of service concerning what is observed in the field.