Exclusive Truck Facilities in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Segregation of truck traffic from passenger traffic through implementation of exclusive truck facilities in key economic corridors can lead to improvements in traffic flow characteristics, safety, and freight efficiency in congested corridors. A model of the 400 series highways around Toronto, Ontario, Canada, assesses alternative configurations of exclusive truck facilities. The demands are based on passenger travel data from a household travel survey, intercity truck travel information from a roadside survey, and urban truck travel information from a three-stage model based on shipper survey data. Origin–destination (O-D) flows are assigned to a regional road network by using a generalized cost multiclass user equilibrium model, and preliminary ramp-to-ramp matrices are extracted from the results of the traffic assignment model. Ramp-to-ramp matrices are improved by using O-D matrix updating. After the O-D matrix updating, observed freeway volumes by vehicle type are replicated very closely in the base case. Converting a lane of mixed traffic to an exclusive truck lane on Highway 401 results in an increase in truck demand and lower truck travel times. Construction of a new exclusive truck highway in an existing hydro corridor through Toronto improves travel times moderately for passenger cars and significantly for medium and heavy trucks.