Highway automation entails the application of control, sensing and communication technologies to road vehicles, with the objective of improving highway performance. It has been envisioned that automation could increase highway capacity by a factor of three. To attain this capacity, it will be important to minimize the amount of lane-changing and optimally assign vehicles to lanes. This paper develops and applies a linear programming based lane assignment model. The highway system is modeled as a multi-commodity network, where the commodities represent trip destinations (i.e., exit ramps on highways). An unusual feature of the model is that capacities are defined by bundle constraints, which are functions of the flow entering, leaving, continuing and passing through lanes in each highway segment. The objective is to maximize total flow, subject to a fixed origiddestination pattern, expressed on a proportional basis. The model is tested for highways with up to 80 segments, 20 destinations and 5 lanes, and parametric analyses are provided with respect to the time-space requirement for lane-changes, number of lanes, number of segments and origiddestination pattern.

This document is the user manual for LANE-OPT. LANE-OPT is a linear program based software package that optimally assigns traffic to lanes on an automated highway. The program is based on a workload model, such that each lane/segment has a fixed capacity than can be allocated among: (1) straight traffic, (2) lane changes into the lane, (3) lane changes out from the lane, and (4) lane changes that pass through the lane. Each of these four movements produces a user-specified workload. The computer program models the highway as a multi-commodity flow network, where commodities represent destinations. The linear program maximizes total network flow, accounting for lane/segment capacities and a fixed origin/destination pattern, which is expressed on a proportion basis.