Simulation of hard shoulder running combined with queue warning during traffic accident with CTM model

Abstract

Hard shoulder running (HSR) and queue warning are two active traffic management (ATM) strategies and are commonly used to alleviate highway traffic congestion. This study proposes an optimisation model for HSR operation in coordination with queue warning service during non-recurring traffic accident condition using an updated cell transmission model (CTM). The CTM in this study is updated in two aspects: first, the capacity reduction caused by traffic accident is considered in the CTM; second, a purposive desired lane-changing rate is updated in the CTM considering a driver's movement from one lane to another depending on the lane blocking after receiving queue warning. The HSR operation combined with queue warning is optimised to minimise the total time delay during traffic accident. The model is tested on the A12 highway in the Netherlands under two typical accident scenarios and presents a certain application value.