Operational analysis of a connected vehicle‐supported access control on urban arterials

Abstract

Urban arterials are characterised by high traffic volume, and driveway densities which cause congestion and crashes. In urban arterials, safety and operational issues can be improved by access management strategies. One such strategy is to restrict traffic entering the urban arterial to ‘right-in–right-out’ through implementing a raised median. While past research has shown the operational benefits of this strategy, it has not been evaluated in the context of dynamic access control. This study investigates the effectiveness of the connected vehicle (CV)-supported dynamic access control. The analysis is applied to an urban corridor under four scenarios: (i) the existing condition with direct left turns (DLTs) permitted at all driveways, (ii) a raised median restricting all driveway traffic to right-in–right-out and U-turns permitted at signallised intersections, (iii) a peak-hour DLT restriction at all driveways, and (iv) dynamic restriction (i.e. a restriction enforced during the time intervals in which traffic flow rates exceed given thresholds) of driveways to right-in–right-out in a CV environment. On the basis of the simulation analysis, it was found that converting driveway access from fully open to right-in–right-out based on prevailing traffic conditions in a CV environment can improve traffic operations.