Roads/Highways

Evaluation Methods for Measuring the Value of ITS Services and Benefits from Implementation: Part X Freeway Service Patrols

Levinson, David
Parthasarathi, Pavithra Kandadai
2001

The goal of our report is to determine the value that people place on the benefits offered by freeway service patrols in comparison to private assistance services and how much they would be willing to pay to avoid being stranded when their vehicle breaks down on the freeway. The report investigates the factors that contribute to people choosing to rely on the highway assistance services in comparison to the private assistance services. The studies conducted so far have focused on the effectiveness of the freeway service patrol whereas this report analyzes the factors that influence people...

Video-based Vehicle Signature Analysis and Tracking System Phase 2: Algorithm Development and Preliminary Testing

MacCarley, Arthur C.
2001

This report describes the results of the PATH/Caltrans-funded project Video-Base Signature Analysis and Tracking (V2SAT) System, Phase 2 Algorithm Development and Preliminary Testing. The V2SATSystem was conceived in 1995 by Loragen Systems, of San Luis Obispo, California, as a means for non-intrusively tracking individual vehicles on freeways for data collection purposes. The concept involves the use of computer vision methods to make simple optical measurements on digitized real-time images of each vehicle on the freeway. A conventional color video camera serves as the primary sensor....

Incident Management with Advanced Traveller Information Systems

Al-Deek, Haitham
Kanafani, Adib
1991

Advanced Traveller Information Systems (ATIS) can be used to collect and disseminate dynamic information about travel times on highway links. One of the potential uses of these systems is to manage incidents. The objective of this research is to showunder what incident conditions is it relevant to provide real time traffic information to travellers.A model that uses graphical queueing techniques is utilized to define cases when ATIS is beneficial and cases when it is not, and to evaluate its benefits as measured by travel time savings. The model is applied to a simple road network with two...

An Economic Analysis Of Network Deployment And Application To Road Pricing

Levinson, David
1998

This paper develops an economic framework for developing strategies necessary to deploy networks, and applies the framework to the deployment of road pricing. The cost structure of highways are discussed. A graphical method for measuring welfare with road pricing is presented. The relationship of space and financing mechanism is reviewed. A network model of the economy is presented. This is followed by a discussion of network externalities, and how those relate to both the deployment and emergence of technologies. Finally, the deployment of three main elements relating to road pricing: use...

TravInfo Evaluation (Technology Element) Traveler Information Center (TIC) Study: Operator Response Time Analysis

Miller, Mark A.
Loukakos, Dimitri
2000

TravInfo (TM) is an advanced traveler information system for the San Francisco Bay Area that began operation in September 1996 under a public/private partnership. The public sector component centers on the Traveler Information Center (TIC), TravInfo (TM)'s information gathering, processing, and dissemination hub. For two years, until September 1998, TravInfo (TM) was a Field Operational Test (FOT) sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration. During the FOT, the TIC was evaluated. This report documents the analysis of operator response time. Response times remained stable throughout the...

Experimental Characterization of Multi-Lane Freeway Traffic Upstream of an Off-Ramp Bottleneck

Munoz, Juan Carlos
Daganzo, Carlos
2000

This report describes field observations of multi-lane freeway traffic upstream of an oversaturated off-ramp. It is based on empirical evidence from freeway I-880 (northbound) near Oakland, California. The report presents two diagnostic tools that reveal hidden features of the traffic stream and, based on these findings, proposes congestion mitigation strategies that could work for similar locations with little or no construction.

On Fundamental Issues Of Vehicle Steering Control For Highway

Guldner, Jurgen
Tan, Han-shue
1997

This paper discusses fundamental issues in lateral control design for automatic steering of passenger cars within an Automated Highway System ( AHS). A detailed analysis using time and frequency domain tools together with physical insight into the vehicle dynamics is presented. Several design directions are investigated, both for look-down and look-ahead systems. In order to preserve the qualities of look-down systems, the concept of virtual look-ahead via additional yaw error and yaw rate error measurements is introduced. The authors conclude that proportional-type feedback design...

Major Failure Events of Automated Highway Systems: Three Scenarios from the Driver’s Perspective

Tsao, H.-S. Jacob
Plocher, Thomas A.
Zhang, Wei-Bin
Shladover, Steven E.
1997

Automated Highway Systems (AHS) have the potential for offering large capacity and safety gains without requiring significant amounts of additional right-of-way. Since the general public will be the users of the AHS, human factors must play a pivotal role in the research and development of AVCS technologies and AHS operation. In two companion reports, three attributes critical to AHS human factors were identified and seven scenarios featuring variations in these attributes proposed. To ensure the identification of all major compounding attribute combinations, detailed operational events,...

Whence Induced Demand: How Access Affects Activity

Levinson, David
Kanchi, Seshasai
2000

Additional highway capacity, by increasing travel speed, affects the individual share of time within a 24-hour budget allocated to various activities (time spent at and traveling to home, shop, work and other), some activities will be undertaken more, others less. This paper extends previous research that identified and quantified induced demand in terms of vehicle miles traveled, by considering questions of what type of demand is induced and which activities are consequently reduced. This paper uses the 1990 and 1995 Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey and Federal Highway...

An Object-oriented Database for IVHS

Varaiya, Pravin
1998

The objective of this proposal was to develop a database that integrates various elements-traffic simulation packages, data sets, and computational tools. The difficulty in integration was felt to be the incompatibility of data structures, formats, and software.It was proposed to design, build and test a software environment with an open architecture that would facilitate a synergistic use of these software elements. The core of this environment was to be an object-oriented commercial database system that would be sufficiently general to support many software elements, and which would...