Abstract
Agencies that have large-scale traffic signal systems under their purview often have to face asset upgrade decisions. As one of the most advanced traffic control technologies, Adaptive Traffic Control Systems (ATCS) are among the options that must be taken into consideration. Having in mind the complexity of benefits and costs stemming from ATCS investments, there is a need for information-rich performance measures (PM) used in the evaluation and decision-making. However, individual PMs are often not suitable for evaluating the multidimensionality of ATCS operations, due the inherent variability of ATCS control parameters. To expand the range of PMs used in ATCS evaluation, this research develops a new PM, i.e., average arrivals on green ratio, and proposes a refinement of average delay PM to account for queue formation. The paper also presents an application framework for a multi-criteria analysis, assuming a combination of the proposed and existing PMs. In addition to presenting the analytical PM formulation, the evaluation methodology uses microsimulation for a case study comparison between actuated-coordinated and ATCS operations. The results include a comparison between previous and proposed PMs, based on the processed simulation data as well as field data. In conclusion, the proposed PMs have a high transferability potential, low data collection cost, and high data quality, thus being suitable for use in decision processes for signal asset investment. Finally, this research opens up further opportunities for advancing decision-support methods for traffic operations asset management.
Highlights
Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) are increasingly important assets due to physical and economic constraints on large infrastructural investments, especially in urban environments
An interesting illustrative example is the intersection of Yorktowne and SR-421, where the same results (73%) for InSync and TOD were obtained for percent on green (POG), with similar values for green time (GT) (67% for InSync; 65% for TOD)
If platoon ratio (PR) was taken into consideration, TOD would have a small advantage over InSync (1.14 > 1.08), whereas the Arrivals on Green Ratio (AAOGR) shows a clear advantage for evaluating TOD operation (1.24% > 0.98%)
Summary
Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) are increasingly important assets due to physical and economic constraints on large infrastructural investments, especially in urban environments. As an important element of ITS worldwide, traffic-signal systems are among the most cost effective investments [1]. Agencies having to operate large-scale traffic-signal systems are facing the question of upgrade investments into these assets [2]. One of the options for system upgrade that agencies have to consider are Adaptive Traffic Control Systems (ATCS). ATCS offer a promise of improving network-wide efficiency in dealing with fluctuating travel demand, reducing signal-retiming costs, and providing large amount of real-time performance data. Most of these systems started as research projects of the academic community, today most of them are commercial products, having
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