Contribution to the development of guidelines for toll plaza design

Increased design, construction, and operation of toll facilities an trends in the United States. Few toll plaza design guidelines exist and proper and safe toll plaza design is even more critical with the implementation of el ectronic toll collection. Several elements of toll plaza design have been i dentified in earlier research to be deficient. This research explores toll plaza design guidelines within the categories of horizontal and vertical ge ometrics, Current design publications with horizontal and vertical design g uidelines, such as the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), t he Highway Capacity Manual (HCM), and A Policy on Geometric Design of Highw ays and Streets (commonly referred to as the "Green Book"), do not adequate ly provide the necessary guidance to design effectively a toll plaza. The d esign guidelines presented in this research include toll plaza approach tap er rates, departure taper rates, queue area length, recovery zone length, t oll lane widths, lane configuration pavement cross slope, profile grades, a nd sight distance. Current practices from 13 toll authorities in the United States were assessed, a panel of toll plaza design experts were assembled to provide review, and horizontal and vertical design guidelines for toll p lazas are recommended.