EVALUATION OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE TRAFFIC LIGHT COORDINATION PLAN ON NAUKI AVENUE IN KHARKIV

Abstract

The paper presents the results of evaluating the performance measures of the newly developed and implemented in practice plan for coordinating the work of six local traffic lights on a 1.8 km long fragment of Nauki Avenue in Kharkiv. The analysis of existing methods of coordinated traffic light management has shown that at present they do not provide high performance and are roughly equal in effect to adaptive traffic light management methods. The main instrument of evaluation was the comparison of the results of the application of new parameters of traffic lights operation on the fragment of the street and road network, surrounding the coordinated section, with the traffic situation existing before its implementation. For this purpose, a study of travel time and the number of vehicle stops at intersections was conducted using the "floating car" method, and the speed of vehicles was calculated using TomTom service data. Each of these methods has its own advantages and disadvantages, and therefore they complemented each other in assessing the direct impact of the coordination plan on the state of traffic management on the studied fragment of the road network. The dual evaluation of the performance measures proved to be very appropriate in light of the operating conditions of the coordinated fragment of Nauki Avenue and the road network around it, which recorded a significant increase in traffic intensity during 2021 and after the implementation of the coordination plan in early 2022. The evaluation of its effectiveness in both ways convincingly showed the high efficiency of this measure, in terms of the number of stops and travel time, and the TomTom service data showed that even with an increase in traffic volume by almost one and a half times, the speed of cars in general increased by more than 14%. Taking into account the minimal costs for the implementation of the coordination plan, this testifies in favor of the means of arterial coordination in the Ukraine cities, as a priority direction for the development of local traffic lights systems in comparison with the creation of adaptive traffic light control systems. Keywords: coordination of traffic lights, urban arterial, travel time, vehicle speed.