Passing Sight Distance and Overtaking Dilemma on Two-Lane Roads

Abstract

The overtaking dilemma involving two small vehicles was discussed by Herman and Lam in 1972. The formulation in a dynamical moving frame of the overtaken vehicle is extended by taking into account the pertinent variables for an overtaking scenario, such as vehicle acceleration and deceleration characteristics, roadway frictional characteristics, drivers' responses, and speeds of the overtaking vehicle and the oncoming vehicle in relation to the overtaken vehicle. A general framework dealing with overtaking is introduced, and analytic expressions for safe passing and aborting sight distances are derived for frictional roadway characteristics from the AASHTO guide. This formulation is further extended to other situations, namely, overtaking that involves a small and a long vehicle and overtaking that involves two long vehicles. Comparisons among our results, the AASHTO guide, the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices on design for safe passing sight distances (PSD), and other related works are given for various overtaking situations. The overtaking scenario in which the vehicle overtaken is “fast” is addressed. Finally, the previous literature associated with the development of PSD is discussed.

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