Integration of progression maximization and delay minimization controls for commuting arterials accommodating highly asymmetric directional traffic flows

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Many commuting arterials often suffer from queue spillovers and excessive delays in the commuting direction of heavy flows but underuse the roadway capacity in the opposing direction. Existing models for arterial signal control, despite their effectiveness, are not customized for such congested traffic systems with highly asymmetric flows. As such, this study proposes a customized signal optimization model with the objective of minimizing delays for the congested direction while ensuring the maximum progression for the opposite low-volume traffic. With the embedded formulations to reflect the impacts of upstream traffic streams’ arriving rates and sequence on each intersection approach’s resulting queue formation pattern, the proposed model can produce the optimal signal offsets and phase sequence to minimize the total delay in the high-volume direction. The proposed model’s explicit optimization of the arriving sequence for upstream traffic streams with the optimal phasing plan can also hold back the turning bay blockage’s onset time and duration, if inevitable, and thus reduce the total incurred delay. Performance comparison results with three benchmark models under extensive experimental scenarios have confirmed the promising properties of the proposed model, customized to contend with congested arterials plagued by saturated flows, excessive delays, and queue overflows for traffic in the commuting direction.