Through junction running simulation study

Use of the hard shoulder as an active running lane has been demonstrated to be an effective measure to reduce congestion and improve journey time reliability on the M42 Active Traffic Management (ATM) pilot project (Sultan et al., 2008). A refinement that has the potential to improve traffic flows further by maximising the capacity of the motorway network would be to allow traffic to use the hard shoulder (HS) through junctions. This is termed Through Junction Running (TJR). Of course, the introduction of TJR must not lead to a reduction in safety standards and, furthermore, the scheme must be reasonably intuitive such that naïve users on the scheme do not feel threatened or insecure on their journey. Understanding how drivers are likely to behave in a TJR scheme is critical in ensuring its safe and efficient operation. Furthermore, drivers’ opinions, attitudes and acceptance of TJR must be understood in order to create a scheme that is usable and viewed positively by the motoring public. To this end a driving simulator study was conducted.