The effect of lane changing behavior on the approach ramp of a road overpass

Approaching the Buendia flyover along Roxas Boulevard, abrupt lane changing occurs exhibited through public vehicles who alight passengers right before the overpass, vehicles from the service lane and others who prefer to travel on less congested lanes. The lane changing causes congestion and bottlenecking along the approach of the flyover, resulting delay to succeeding vehicles. This study focuses on the effects of lane changing behavior of the vehicles as well as analyzing the delay it caused on other vehicles. As stated by the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (2012) irresponsible and abrupt lane changing is considered as swerving which may cause unnecessary queuing ultimately leading to the traffic delays. At most 78% of the lane changing incidents caused delay where majority of which are abrupt. It was observed that the increase in delay of vehicles is a 2nd degree polynomial under all vehicular flows making all flows critical. The observed effects of lane changing behavior on succeeding vehicles are delay, increased travel time and decreased speed. The total delay caused by the vehicles in an hour is 28737 vehicle-min. At most the vehicles traversing the area must allot 169.69 secs of travel time to arrive in time due to the delay caused by swerving vehicles. Also, fast succeeding vehicles tend to slow down to react to the swerving incident. Lastly suggesting to open the adjacent road during peak hours would not alleviate congestion in the area for the delay would only increase based on the preliminary analysis