Roads/Highways

Field Testing the Effectiveness of Adaptive Traffic Control for Arterial Signal Management

Campbell, Robert
Skabardonis, Alexander
University of California, Berkeley
2014

The report describes the methodology and findings of the evaluation of adaptive signal control in a real-life corridor. The study section was a five mile section of the Pacific Coast Highway in Los Angeles with nine signalized intersections operating under adaptive control using the Los Angeles DOT ATCS (adaptive traffic control system). Optimal fixed time time-of-day plans were developed and implemented at the test site. The performance of the ATCS system and the fixed-time plans was evaluated using extensive field data on travel times and queue lengths collected through probe vehicles,...

Extracting Vehicle Trojectories from Video Data: The NGSIM Ptototype Data Set

Sim, Z W
Skabardonis, A
University of California, Berkeley
2005

The Next Generation Simulation (NGISM) program, initiated by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), has as its objective the development of behavioral algorithms that support microscopic traffic simulation, accompanied by documentation and validation sets. This article relates how algorithms from the California Partners for Advanced Transit and Highways (PATH) program were selected to produce a prototype data set of vehicle trajectories as well as aid in assessing the viability of emerging technologies for automating the trajectory generation process. Vehicle trajectories are needed to...

Extracting Vehicle Trojectories from Video Data: The NGSIM Ptototype Data Set

Sim, Z W
Skabardonis, A
University of California, Berkeley
2005

The Next Generation Simulation (NGISM) program, initiated by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), has as its objective the development of behavioral algorithms that support microscopic traffic simulation, accompanied by documentation and validation sets. This article relates how algorithms from the California Partners for Advanced Transit and Highways (PATH) program were selected to produce a prototype data set of vehicle trajectories as well as aid in assessing the viability of emerging technologies for automating the trajectory generation process. Vehicle trajectories are needed to...

Evaluation of the Freeway Service Patrol (FSP) in Los Angeles

Skabardonis, Alexander
University of California, Berkeley
1998

This report presents the results of a study designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the freeway service patrols (FSP) on a section of I-10 in Los Angeles. An evaluation methodology was used to estimate incident delays based on loop detector data and probe vehicles, and derive estimates of savings in performance measures in the absence of data for before FSP conditions. The estimated benefit cost ratios based on delay and fuel savings for a range of typical reductions in incident durations indicate that FSP produces significant benefits at the test site. Additional benefits include...

Evaluation of Methodologies for the Design and Analysis of Freeway Weaving Sections

Skabardonis, Alexander
Christofa, Eleni
2011

Weaving sections are common design elements on freeway facilities such as near ramps and freeway-to-freeway connectors. Traffic operational problems often exist at weaving areas even when traffic demands are less than capacity because of the complexity of vehicle interactions, resulting in poor level of service (LOS) and potential safety problems. The objective of the work described in this paper is to evaluate the new weaving analysis methodology developed for the forthcoming edition of the Highway Capacity Manual (HCM2010). The authors applied the method to 30 real-world weaving sections...

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board

Skabardonis, Alexander
Mauch, Michael
2015

Weaving sections are common design elements on freeway facilities such as near ramps and freeway-to-freeway connectors. Traffic operational problems often exist at weaving areas even when traffic demands are less than capacity because of the complexity of vehicle interactions, resulting in poor level of service and potential safety problems. The objective of this research was to evaluate the methodology for analyzing freeway weaving in the Highway Capacity Manual 2010 (HCM 2010) and other methodologies for evaluating weaving, such as Level D and Leisch, that are used for design and...

Evaluation of Coordinated Ramp Metering (CRM) Systems in California

Mauch, Michael
Skabardonis, Alexander
University of California, Berkeley
2021

Freeway on-ramp metering has been extensively used as a traffic control strategy to regulate the entry of the on-ramp vehicles to prevent congestion at the freeway merging areas and preserve the freeway capacity. The report presents the research performed and findings on the evaluation of coordinated ramp metering (CRM) systems recently implemented on I-80 Smart Corridor in Caltrans District 4 and SR-99 in Caltrans District 3. The evaluation of CRM on the selected corridors based on “before” and “after” field data during the peak periods showed a 3-9% delay reduction, and 18-28% travel...

Estimation of measures of effectiveness based on Connected Vehicle data

Argote, J
Christofa, E
Xuan, Yiguang
Skabardonis, A
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
2011

Vehicle-infrastructure cooperation via the Connected Vehicle initiative is a promising mobile data source for improving real-time traffic management applications such as adaptive signal control. This paper focuses on developing estimation methods with the use of Connected Vehicle data for several measures of effectiveness (e.g., queue length, average speed, number of stops), essential for determining traffic conditions on urban signalized arterials for real-time applications. This research systematically determines minimum penetration rates that allow accurate estimates for a wide range of...

Estimation of Arterial Measures of Effectiveness with Connected Vehicle Data

Argote, Juan
Christofa, Eleni
Xuan, Yiguang
Skabardonis, Alexander
Transportation Research Board
2012

The Connected Vehicle technology is a promising mobile data source for improving real-time traffic conditions monitoring and control. This paper presents estimation methods for a variety of measures of effectiveness both at the arterial and intersection level (e.g., average speed, acceleration noise, queue length). These performance measures are essential for determining traffic conditions and improving signal control strategies in real-time. The estimation methods are tested with two datasets comprising of various traffic conditions: undersaturated and oversaturated and the minimum...

Estimating the impacts of signal hardware improvements

Skabardonis, A
1996

Signal equipment upgrades (e.g., multiple timing plan capability and signal interconnection) are commonly used to improve the quality of traffic flow in urban arterials and networks. The findings of the assessment of the effects of alternative control scenarios to assist practicing engineers in conducting analyses to determine the effectiveness of proposed signal equipment upgrades are presented. The effectiveness of hardware improvements was evaluated against the optimal timings with the available equipment to differentiate the benefits from installing hardware from the benefits from...