Roads/Highways

Effectiveness of California’s High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) System

Varaiya, Pravin
2007

This is the most extensive empirical evaluation of the effectiveness of California’s HOV system based on data collected from traffic sensors. The evaluation leads to four major conclusions. (1) Since it operates as a single lane freeway, an HOV lane suffers a 20 % capacity loss compared with multi-lane freeways. (2) HOV lanes are either under-utilized or suffer degraded operations. (3) HOV lanes do not measurably increase car-pooling. (4) HOV lanes do not reduce overall congestion in a reasonably well-managed system.

The Automated Highway System / Street Interface: Final Report

Hall, Randolph
Chin, Chinan
Gadgil, Nishad
2003

The economics of roadways, and their variability in demand, favor construction of multi-layered and inter-connected networks. Different network layers are designed to different standards and to perform somewhat different functions, though all provide the common function of mobility for a reasonably homogeneous class of vehicles. Yet interfaces have been constructed to provide a smooth transition between network layers, with little delay and inconvenience to travelers. This project has investigated interfaces between an automated highway network layer and city streets. The report...

TASK A-1: Motivations Behind Electronic Road Pricing. What is the Driving Force Behind the Worldwide Rise in Tolling? A Review of Innovative Road Pricing from Across the Globe

Kalauskas, Rebecca
Taylor, Brian D.
Iseki, Hiroyuki
2009

The report identifies the motivations behind and objectives of specific road pricing initiatives, and to explore why such policies are becoming an increasingly popular approach to transportation finance and management. Over the past 15 years, electronic road pricing projects have appeared in a variety of forms across the globe – from the Interstate 15 High-occupancy toll (HOT) Lanes in San Diego County, to the congestion cordon pricing scheme in central London, to the German weight-distance truck toll system, to the Oregon mileage-based user fees pilot program. While the stated objectives...

Evaluation Of Highway Bottlenecks

Hall, Randolph W.
Kamoun, Mahdi
1991

This is the final report of the PATH research project "Bottleneck Evaluation Model." The goal of the project was to develop a computer tool for evaluating capacity and travel time benefits of PATH improvements. The Bottleneck Traffic Simulator (BTS) is used to investigate the time benefits of changes in highway design and operation. Key issues include the effects of (1) highway reliability, in the form of incident frequency, duration and reliability; and (2) changes in traveler behavior, in the forms of arrival time choice and reneging.

Effectiveness of Adaptive Traffic Control for Arterial Signal Management: Modeling Results

Skabardonis, Alexander
Gomes, Gabriel
2010

This study identifies and selects the most promising existing adaptive control algorithms for arterial streets, evaluates performance through simulation, and develops a plan for field testing of the most promising algorithms on a real-world arterial. A section of Highway 1 in the city of Lomita, California was selected as the test site for evaluation of adaptive signal control strategies. A methodology was developed to obtain a time-varying origin-destination (OD) matrix from the system loop detector data at the test site. The calibrated OD matrix was applied to a microscopic...

On-Ramp Metering and Commuter Delay: A Before and After Study

Kim, Kwangho
Cassidy, Michael J.
2010

This report furnishes clear evidence that on-ramp metering can increase the output flow through a freeway, and by so doing diminish the total time that commuters collectively spend traveling on the freeway and its on-ramps. Empirical study was performed on a 6.3-mile stretch of northbound Interstate 5 in Sacramento. The stretch spans the interchanges of Pocket Road (to the south) to W street (See Figure 1). Traffic data, both from loop detectors and from videos, were collected during the morning rush periods over a period spanning several years. Data were initially collected in 2006 prior...

A Functional Architecture For Automated Highway Traffic Planning

Tsao, H. S. Jacob
1994

This report defines an architecture for Automated Highway System (AHS) capacity-optimizing traffic planning functions. It identifies major traffic planning functions useful for optimizing the capacity of one or more major AHS operating scenarios and organizes them in a robust architecture that is modular, hierarchical, complete, expandable and integratable.

Testing A Proposed Decision-oriented Framework To Understand Its Deployment Issues: An Examination Of The Travinfo Atis Project

Miller, Mark
1998

Deployment is at the forefront of current activity in California in the field of intelligent transportation systems. It is important to understand the multitude of issues associated with such deployment to increase the likelihood of a successful deployment initiative. A review and synthesis of the literature on deployment issues have been performed. This served as a basis for development of a proposed decision-oriented framework that may be used to recognize and organize issues for the deployment of intelligent transportation systems. The applicability of this framework to intelligent...

San Diego I-15 Integrated Corridor Management (ICM) System: Phase I

Miller, Mark
Novick, Linda
Li, Yuwei
Skabardonis, Alex
2008

This report describes the Stage One work of the US Department of Transportation’s (DOT) federally-sponsored Integrated Corridor Management (ICM) Program for the I-15 Corridor in San Diego County, California, between State Route 52 in the city of San Diego and State Route 78 in the city of Escondido. The development work is based on the systems engineering process whereby this work focused specifically on the concept of operations and the system requirements specifications. The development of the concept of operations consists of the following elements: vision, goals and objectives for the...

A Continuing Systems-level Evaluation Of Automated Urban Freeways: Year Three

Johnston, Robert A.
Ceerla, Raju
1993

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the travel and emissions impacts of urban freeway automation scenarios and to compare these to travel demand reduction scenarios, such as travel pricing and land use intensification. The Sacramento regional travel demand model set was used and an alternatives analysis was conducted. Two protocols are used to operate the model set. Results are discussed, comparing the alternative scenarios, and methodological findings are discussed, comparing the results from the two protocols for operating the model set. Methodological findings present new ideas...