Design Vehicles and Turning Radii

Design Vehicles and Turning Radii
 Brazhuman corp  TTE 4824  Dr. Scott Washburn

Introduction
 Design vehicles are selected motor vehicles with the weight, dimensions, and operating characteristics used to establish highway design controls for accommodating vehicles of designated classes.
 For purposes of geometric design, each design vehicle has larger physical dimensions and a larger minimum turning radius than most vehicles in its class.

Introduction
 The design of an intersection is significantly affected by the type of design vehicle, including horizontal and vertical alignments, lane widths, turning radii, intersection sight distance, storage length of auxiliary lanes, and acceleration and deceleration lengths on auxiliary lanes.

Design Vehicle Classes
 Four general classes of vehicles have been established, namely, passenger cars, buses, trucks, and recreational vehicles.
 The passenger car class includes compacts, subcompacts, sedans, pick-up trucks, SUVs, minivans, and full-size vans.

Design Vehicle Classes
 Buses include inter-city (motor coaches), city transit, school, and articulated buses.
 The truck class includes single-unit trucks, truck tractor-semitrailer combinations, and truck tractors with semitrailers in combination with full trailers.

Design Vehicle Classes
 Recreational vehicles include motor homes, cars with camper trailers, cars with boat trailers, motor homes with boat trailers, and motor homes pulling cars.
 Additionally, the bicycle should also be considered a design vehicle when its use on a roadway is permitted.

Dimensions of Design Vehicles
 The 2001 AASHTO Green Book includes 19 design vehicles.
 The dimensions of design vehicles take into account dimensional trends in motor vehicle manufacture and represent a composite of the vehicles currently in operation; however, the design vehicle dimensions must represent the values critical to geometric design and are thus greater than nearly all vehicles belonging to the corresponding vehicle classes.

Design Vehicle Dimensions
AASHTO, Exhibit 2-1

Choice of Design Vehicle
 The choice of design vehicle is influenced by the functional classification of a roadway, and by the proportions of the various types and sizes of vehicles expected to use the facility.
 On rural facilities, to accommodate truck traffic, one of the semitrailer combination trucks should be considered in design.
 In urban areas that are highly built-up, intersections may be designed to provide fully for passenger vehicles but require the larger vehicles to swing wide upon turning.

Choice of Design Vehicle
 The vehicle which occurs with considerable frequency is often selected as the design vehicle.
 The largest of all the several design vehicles are usually accommodated in the design of freeways, subject to state laws on permitted vehicles.