Additional lanes
An additional lane ( ZFS ) increases the number of lanes on a lane in a certain route section. This measure can improve the performance there. An improvement in performance means an increase in the average speed of travel and a higher quality of traffic . In addition to increasing performance, an additional lane can also increase safety on the road section. In Germany, for example, the RAS-Q edition 1996 can be used as a valid technical guideline .
The merging of lanes requires special consideration from road users . The zipper method must be used. The procedure does not always work smoothly, so accidents often occur at this point .
use
Additional lanes can be useful in the following places:
- Inclines.
In steeply rising sections, slow vehicles (trucks, agricultural traffic) block the rest of the traffic and provoke dangerous overtaking maneuvers . In this case, the additional lane is intended for faster traffic.
- Sections of the route with low overtaking visibility.
Accidents often happen in sections with high curvature and low overtaking visibility because drivers overtake riskily given the lack of overtaking opportunities. An additional lane on one section of the route enables safe overtaking there.
At heavily loaded intersections, the different traffic flows can be better distributed and sorted according to the direction of travel. The efficiency of the node is thus increased. Behind the junction, the additional lane is brought together again with the actual lane.
Of course, there can also be route sections that form a hybrid of the points mentioned above. In the past, the use of the standard cross-section 15.5 for extra-urban routes has proven successful.