Background The concept of dedicated truck-only lanes has been proposed more than twenty years ago and since then, several jurisdictions have undertaken studies exploring the concept. While the nature of these studies range from research, to proof-of-concept to detailed design-and-build project studies, most of these studies have a common issue to deal with, i.e., predicting/forecasting the commercial vehicle demand, along with all the other class of passenger vehicles demand as well as system-wide impacts (both benefits and disbenefits) of various truck-only treatments for evaluation purpose. This is the primary focus area of this paper. Issues Related to Modelling Travel demand forecasting models, either regional or state/province-wide, are a key planning tool for such studies. The levels of detail and market segments covered in regional models vary across the regions/jurisdictions that have explored the concept of truck-only lanes. Two key areas related to demand modelling of commercial vehicle demand are a) how well it is integrated with the passenger demand models, and b) how the parameters related to truck traffic behavioural aspects have been developed and incorporated. This paper will include a cursory review of some of the previous studies with regard to demand modelling approach and methodology, in particular the two issues mentioned, as well as evaluation techniques. GGH Case Studies The second part of the paper presents an overview of a case study involving a strategic assessment of truck-only lanes in the freeway network in a regional context within the Greater Golden Horseshoe, in Central Ontario. The use of a regional macro-level travel demand model for the strategic analysis and a mesoscopic sub-area model will be presented, along with a discussion of technical results of these two analyses.
