Modelling the variation and uncertainty problem of right-turn-on-red queue in a variety of conflicting environments

Abstract

The primary purpose of this study is to develop an explicit dynamical state estimation model of the right-turn-on-red queue to solve the accuracy problem of the right-turn-on-red operation assessment in a variety of conflicting environments. Our effort focuses on characterizing the dynamics and nonlinearity of the right-turn-on-red queue. The proposed model can explicitly measure the variability of the right-turn-on-red queue under various traffic conditions without requiring substantial parameters. In this paper, we provide a set of measures to formulate the right-turn-on-red operation performance. Besides some fundamental average indices, the index of the signal-state-dependent queue length that can characterize the queue evolution process of right-turn-on-red is obtained, in particular, we also obtain the variance of right-turn-on-red queue length at a given time point within a cycle. The new version of the queue length along the signal state can play an important role in understanding the accuracy of the use of right-turn-on-red operation and providing a high quality solution to properly treat the right-turn-on-red control under the different types of right-turn-on-red phasing regimes. The results obtained from the proposed model were compared with field data, which showed good agreement. In addition, a series of numerical experiments is carried out to clarify the effects of the possible factors on the dynamical state of the right-turn-on-red queue.