ITS Berkeley

An agent-based, multichannel simulation of a downtown area reveals the impacts of both time-shifting traffic demand with congestion pricing, and supplying extra capacity by banning left turns. The downtown street network was idealized, and loosely resembles central Los Angeles. On the demand-side, prices were set based on time-of-day and distance traveled. On the supply side, left-turn maneuvers were prohibited at all intersections on the network. Although both traffic management measures reduced travel costs when used alone, the left-turn ban was much less effective than pricing. When...

The paper presents a new method for operating urban railways that, without building any additional infrastructure or significantly changing the passengers’ level-of-service, allows an agency to run trains up to three times longer than existing station platforms and still fill them with passengers. An operating system (OS) underpinning the new method is presented. The only requirement of the rolling stock is that the doors in different parts of each train (e.g., its cars) can be operated independently. The extra-long trains (XLTs) can protrude beyond both ends of the station platforms—in...

The paper addresses two questions regarding cordon metering that have until now gone unanswered. The first of these pertains to how and where a metered cordon ought to be placed in a city to be of greatest benefit. A simple 3-step rule is proposed that can be readily applied in real settings, and that we call the cordon layout conjecture, or CLC. Its use is shown to minimize the overall travel time inside and outside the cordon combined. The second question pertains to the conditions for which an optimally placed metered cordon can reduce said travel time relative to doing nothing. The...