Progression Through a Series of Intersections with Traffic Actuated Controllers. Volume 2: User's Guide. Final Report

Many traffic control systems on urban arterials and grid networks include signals with actuated controllers. However, commonly used computer programs for signal timing cannot directly optimize the timing of coordinated signals.  Users have to apply techniques designed for pretimed signals, and then "translate" the optimized pretimed settings into settings for the actuated controllers.  In addition, other signal control choices, such as whether to operate a particular signal as pretimed, semi-actuated, or fully actuated, are left entirely to the user.  This report is a user's guide for applying the MAXBAND, PASSER and TRANSYT-7F timing programs to systems with actuated controllers. Guidelines on how to select the type of signal control at specific intersections for commonly occurring field conditions also are presented.  The guidelines are based on operating strategies developed for 14 representative grid systems and arterials and tested through simulation, with the NETSIM program.  Chapter 1 of this report describes procedures for translating pretimed timings to actuated controllers' settings for arterial systems.  Chapter 2 describes such procedures for grid networks.  Criteria for choosing the type of control at selected intersections in coordinated systems are presented in Chapter 3.  The report is the second volume produced in this study.  Volume 1, the technical report, presents the study methodology, the development of operating strategies, and the results from their application.