| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立交通大學 === 交通運輸研究所 === 70 ===
Motorcycle has been one of the major transportation modes in many developing countries for the past decades. However, information regarding motorcycle drivers' behaviour is extremely limited in the existing literature. The main objective of this research was to investigate the gap acceptance characteristics of motorcycle drivers at urban intersections. Two specific objectives were as follows:
(1)To develop the gap acceptance functions and the accepted gap distributions for motorcycle drivers with respect to different intersection maneuvers.
(2)To compare the difference, if any, in gap acceptance characteristics between mtorcycle and motor vehicle drivers, in order to determine what modification is needed in traffic design and analysis in the areas where motorcycles constitute a significant part of urban traffic.
Appropriate field studies were conducted to determine gap acceptance characteristics of minor road motorcycle drivers to cross or merge with major road traffic at unsignalized intersections on multi-lane divided roads. The gaps and lags were classified according to the following maneuvers:(a)through movement in two maneuvers, (b)through movement in one maneuver, (c)left turn in two maneuvers, and (d)left turn in one maneuver. Additional field studies were undertaken at signalized intersections to estimate the gap acceptance distribution for left-turning movements. The corresponding characteristics of motor vehicle drivers at the study locations were also investigated for comparison.
Traffic data were collected from a number of intersection locations in the city of Taipei. A video recording procedure was used to record and subsequently retrieve information relative to various events of interest. Statistical analysis of the data was performed to establish the characteristics of motorcycle motorcycle and motor vehicle gap acceptances.
An analysis of the motorcycle data revealed that the gap acceptance functions fit a Gompertz curve well and the distribution of accepted gaps corresponds to a gamma distribution. It was found that the critical gaps for motorcycle drivers is significantly less than that for motor vehicle drivers under certain types of intersection maneuvers, while no significant difference could be found under others. The study further found that in mixing traffic the existence of other motorcycles within the avaiable gaps in the major flow significantly affect the gap acceptance characteristics of both motorcycla and motor vehicle drivers at the minor road. A number of other findings regarding effects of traffic speed, and traffic control on gap acceptance, as well as other related issues are also presented and discussed. Recommendations are made for improving the procedures used and conducting further investigation.
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