Bidirectional traffic explained

In transportation infrastructure, a bidirectional traffic system divides travellers into two streams of traffic that flow in opposite directions.^[1]

In the design and construction of tunnels, bidirectional traffic can markedly affect ventilation considerations.^[2]

Microscopic traffic flow models have been proposed for bidirectional automobile, pedestrian, and railway traffic.^[3] Bidirectional traffic can be observed in ant trails^[4] which have been researched for insight into human traffic models.^[5] In a macroscopic theory proposed by Laval, the interaction between fast and slow vehicles conforms to the Newell kinematic wave model of moving bottlenecks.^[6]

In air traffic control traffic is normally separated by elevation, with east bound flights at odd thousand feet elevations and west bound flights at even thousand feet elevations (1000 ft ≈ 305m). Above 28,000 ft (~8.5 km) only odd flight levels are used, with FL 290, 330, 370, etc., for eastbound flights and FL 310, 350, 390, etc., for westbound flights.^[7] Entry to and exit from airports is always one-way traffic, as runways are chosen to allow aircraft to take off and land into the wind, to reduce ground speed.^[8] Even in no wind cases, a preferred calm wind runway and direction is normally chosen and used by all flights, to avoid collisions.^[9] In uncontrolled airports, airport information can be obtained from anyone at the airport. Traffic follows a specific traffic pattern, with designated entry and exits. Radio announcements are made, whether anyone is listening or not, to allow any other traffic to be aware of other traffic in the area.^[10]

In the earliest days of railways in the United Kingdom, most lines were built double tracked because of the difficulty of coordinating operations in pre-telegraphy times.

Most modern roads carry bidirectional traffic, although one-way traffic is common in dense urban centres. Bidirectional traffic flow is believed to influence the rate of traffic collisions. In an analysis of head-on, rear-end, and lane-changing collisions based on the Simon-Gutowitz bidirectional traffic model, it was concluded that "the risk of collisions is important when the density of cars in one lane is small and ... the other lane['s] is high enough," and that "heavy vehicles cause an important reduction of traffic flow on the home lane and provoke an increase of the risk of car accident."^[11]

Bidirectional traffic is the most common form of flow observed in trails, however, some larger pedestrian concourses exhibit multidirectional traffic.^[12]

Further reading

• Book: Structural design issues. Transportation research record. National Research Council, Transportation Research Board. 2000. 978-0-309-06744-7. Two-lane rural highways with bidirectional traffic.
• Book: Michael S. Bernick . Michael S. Bernick . Robert Cervero . Transit villages in the 21st century . McGraw-Hill . 1996 . 978-0-07-005475-2. Satellite subcenters would function as countermagnets to central Stockholm, leading to efficient bidirectional traffic flows.. Robert Cervero.
• Annual meeting. Compendium of Technical Papers. Institute of Transportation Engineers. 53. 1983. Madras conducted some field studies to evolve a relationship between speed and volume of traffic on single and two lane bidirectional traffic roads..
• Book: Bickel, John . T. R. Kuesel . Tunnel engineering handbook . Van Nostrand Reinhold Company . 1982 . University of California . 499 . 978-0-442-28127-4 . This results in bidirectional traffic in a single tunnel..
• Book: Highway Research Board . National Research Council. Proceedings of a workshop held May 17–19, 1971. Systems building for bridges. 46. 1972. 978-0-309-02063-3. Obviously the hazards are far more numerous and the need for better headlighting much greater on these millions of miles of streets and highways carrying bidirectional traffic, particularly because so few of these miles have even mediocre fixed highway lighting..
• Book: National Research Council . Transportation Research Board. Pavement management systems. National Academy Press. 24. 1993. 978-0-309-05468-3.
• Report 65: "Evaluation of Bus Bulbs". Transit Cooperative Research Program. Transportation Research Board . National Research Council . Federal Transit Administration. 20. 2009-09-09. Conversely, at 44 sq ft (4.1 sq m), passing slower pedestrian traffic is easier, crossing bidirectional traffic is nearly unhindered, and traveling through the zone is dramatically less affected by other walking or standing pedestrians..
• Book: Stone, H. David . Vital rails: the Charleston & Savannah Railroad and the Civil War in coastal South Carolina . University of South Carolina Press . 2008 . 978-1-57003-716-0 . Single tracking and the relative lack of sidings made bidirectional traffic difficult — a difficulty that became more obvious during the conflict with the North..
• Book: Behrens, John . A staff technical report. Recommendation for the Chicago area freight system for 1995. Chicago Area Transportation Study. 1974. The average yard handle 350 vans of bidirectional traffic each day..
• Transportation system management, parking, and travel demand management. Transportation Research Record. 1993. National Research Council. Transportation Research Board. 1404. 39. 978-0-309-05550-5. This is especially true for physically challenged users and the elderly, who have to weave through bidirectional traffic..
• Book: Borndörfer, Ralf . Marika Neumann. Marc E. Pfetsch. Optimal Fares for Public Transport. Operations Research Proceedings 2005. Jörn. Herbert. Hans-Dietrich. Haasis. Springer Berlin Heidelberg. Bremen. 2005-11-16. 10.1007/3-540-32539-5. http://www.matheon.de/preprints/2771_BorndoerferNeumannPfetsch.pdf. It consists of a network containing 23 nodes (stations) and a corresponding upper-triangular origin-destination matrix (d0st) with 210 nonzero entries that account for a symmetric bidirectional traffic. . 2005. Schönberger. Kopfer. 978-3-540-32537-6.
• Options for tunnelling. Developments in Geotechnical Engineering. 1993. H.. Burger. 35. 978-0-444-89935-4. A tunnel with an inner diameter of 9.75 meters allowing a bidirectional traffic of 2 x 3 car lanes on two superimposed levels..
• Book: Cervero, Robert . Robert Cervero. The transit metropolis: a global inquiry . Island Press. 1998 . 77 . 978-1-55963-591-2 . As shown in Stockholm and Curitiba, mixed land uses can translate into balanced, bidirectional traffic flows..
• Volume 26, Issues 1-7. Electronic Design. 1978. Hayden Pub. Co. But to get the sign's X-band Doppler radar to work reliably from overpasses (see photo) or from overhead sign posts, two major problems had to be overcome: fluctuations in the Doppler returns because of multipath cancellations from cars approaching the sign, and interference caused by bidirectional traffic flow..
• A new overtaking model and numerical tests. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and Its Applications. 2007-03-15. T.Q.. Tang. H.J. . Huang . S.C. . Wong . X.Y. . Xu. 376. 649–657. 10.1016/j.physa.2006.10.044. The overtaking in a two-lane bidirectional traffic flow is also analyzed.. 2007PhyA..376..649T.
• Measurements to define relationship between traffic volume and traffic conditions in Hungary. Periodica Polytechnica Ser. Civ. Eng.. 2002. András. Bényei. Péter Golarits. 46. 1. 83–94. 2009-09-09. In Fig. 3 the s = f (V∗) functions are presented, showing the V∗ PCU/h fictive bidirectional traffic volumes delimiting the proposed three grades of level of services.. https://web.archive.org/web/20110719103730/http://www.pp.bme.hu/ci/2002_1/pdf/ci2002_1_07.pdf. 2011-07-19. dead.
• Book: Hamza-lup, Georgiana . Kien A. Hua . Minh Le . Rui Peng . Enhancing intelligent transportation systems to improve and support homeland security. IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Conference. Washington, D.C.. 250–255. 2004. 10.1109/ITSC.2004.1398906. 0-7803-8500-4. 16138371. http://dsg.eecs.ucf.edu/portals/0/publications/2004/stems.pdf. In the Fastest-Links approach, links that are not on the multicast tree are allowed to have bidirectional traffic, so we only need to enforce certain directions for the traffic flowing through the intersections/nodes in the multicast tree..
• US. 5815161. "As shown, the two links 100, 102 have mutually opposite traffic directions. This means that in the joining, the complex road junction can get a bidirectional traffic indication."
• Development and Evaluation of In-vehicle Signing System Utilizing RFID tags as Digital Traffic Signs. International Journal of ITS Research. December 2006. Yoshimichi. Sato. Koji Makanae. 40. 1. 2009-09-09. This approach makes the system applicable also to a narrow undivided road carrying bidirectional traffic.
• Book: Blue, Victor . Jeffrey Adler. Cellular automata model of emergent collective bi-directional pedestrian dynamics. Artificial Life VII: Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Artificial Life, eds.. The MIT Press. Portland, Oregon. 437–445. 2000. http://vicblue.com/CAPed-AL7.pdf. 2009-09-09. 978-0-262-52290-8. The bi-directional vehicular flow model focuses on modeling acceleration and passing movements within the framework of two lanes of opposing flow.. M.A. Bedau . J.S. McCaskill . N.H. Packard . S. Rasmussen.
• News: Road Watch: The Budapest Sun traffic buster . 2008-05-07 . The Budapest Sun . 2009-09-09 . The bidirectional traffic flow is controlled by traffic lights..
• The semigroup approach to transport processes in networks . Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena. 2009-06-21. B.. Dorna. M. Kramar Fijavžb . R. Nagela . A. Radla . 239. 15. 1416. 10.1016/j.physd.2009.06.012. 2009-09-10 . 2010PhyD..239.1416D.

Notes and References

1. Simon–Gutowitz bidirectional traffic model revisited. Physics Letters A. 2008-11-10. Najem. Moussa. 372. 45. 6701–6704. 10.1016/j.physleta.2008.08.081. 0903.1345. 2008PhLA..372.6701M. 17577121.
2. The aerodynamics and ventilation of vehicle tunnels: a state of the art review and bibliography. BHRA Fluid Engineering. 1976. 2. 236. 978-0-900983-62-7. Pursall. B. R.. King. Alan Leslie.
3. Cellular automaton model for bidirectional traffic. Physical Review E. February 1998. P. M.. Simon. H. A. Gutowitz. 57. 2. 2441–2444. 10.1103/PhysRevE.57.2441. cond-mat/9801024. 1998PhRvE..57.2441S. 118276303.
4. Head-on encounter rates and walking speed of foragers in leaf-cutting ant traffic. Insectes Sociaux. February 2003. Martin. Burd. N. Aranwela. 50. 1. 3–8. 10.1007/s000400300001. Birkhäuser Basel. 23876486.
5. Characteristics of ant-inspired traffic flow. Swarm Intelligence. March 2008. Alexander. John. Andreas Schadschneider . Debashish Chowdhury . Katsuhiro Nishinari . 2. 1. 25–41. 10.1007/s11721-008-0010-8. Springer New York. 0903.1434. 18350336.
6. A macroscopic theory of two-lane rural roads. Transportation Research Part B: Methodological. December 2006. Jorge. Laval. 40. 10. 937–944. 10.1016/j.trb.2006.03.002. 2006TRPB...40..937L . 2009-09-10. 2022-11-20. https://web.archive.org/web/20221120023848/http://trafficlab.ce.gatech.edu/pubs/2Lanes.pdf. dead.
7. Web site: airways and aircraft separation. www.pilotfriend.com.
8. http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/airplane/move.html Relative Velocity
9. Web site: Calm Wind Runways . 2012-05-30 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120617012601/http://www.dot.state.mn.us/aero/avoffice/press/pdf/minnflyer606.pdf . 2012-06-17 . dead .
10. Web site: Operations at nontowered airports . 2012-05-30 . https://web.archive.org/web/20060113013300/http://www.aopa.org/asf/publications/sa08.pdf . 2006-01-13 . dead .
11. Najem . Moussa. Simulation study of traffic accidents in bidirectional traffic models. 2009 . 0905.4252. 10.1142/S0129183110016007. 21. 12. International Journal of Modern Physics C. 1501–1515. 2010IJMPC..21.1501M. 16610321.
12. Cellular automata microsimulation of bidirectional pedestrian flows. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board. 1999. Victor. Blue. Jeffrey Adler. 1678. 1. 135–141. 10.3141/1678-17. https://web.archive.org/web/20200504010049/http://vicblue.com/CA-BIPED.pdf. dead. 2020-05-04. 2009-09-09. Transportation Research Board of the National Academies. 110675891.