Traffic Operations and Management

Traffic Management Systems Performance Measurement: Study Directions and Scope, Proposed Measures of Effectiveness, and Proposed Action Priorities

Banks, James H.
Kelly, Gregory
1997

This report documents research focusing on: 1) analyzing performance measurements for California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) Transportation Management Centers (TMCs); 2) identifying and assessing the feasibility of data collection and management activities required to support TMC performance measurement; and, 3) recommending specific actions by Caltrans and the California PATH program that will facilitate performance measurement.

Traffic Flow Control in Automated Highway Systems

Alvarez, Luis
Horowitz, Roberto
1997

This report studies the problem of traffic control in the Automated Highway System (AHS) hierarchical architecture of the California PATH program. A link layer controller for the PATH AHS architecture is presented. It is shown that the proposed control laws stabilize the vehicular density and flow around predetermined profiles.

Commercial Motor Vehicles' Safety - A California Perspective

Giuliano, Gen
Zhou, Jiangping
McFerrin, Peter
Miller, Mark A.
2010

This report presents the findings of an examination of commercial motor vehicle crashes in California. Initially, a review of the basic descriptive statistics associated with truck-involved crashes in California was conducted; it covered the time period between January 1995 and December 2004 based on the Statewide Incident Tracking and Reporting System (SWITRS) data base, which contains information about every single motor vehicle accident in the state reported to a law enforcement agency. In addition to examinations of the entire population of truck-involved crashes in the state over the...

Evaluation of the Effects of Intelligent Cruise Control Vehicles in Mixed Traffic

Ioannou, Petros
2003

This is the final report for the project entitled "Evaluation of the Effects of Intelligent Cruise Control Vehicles in Mixed Traffic". The project was initially under MOU392 and switched to Task Order 4217 at the beginning of the 2nd year of the project. Due to this administrative change a final report was submitted to PATH for MOU392 covering all the tasks completed during the 1st year of the project. The two research tasks that were not completed under MOU392 became the main focus of Task Order 4217.

TRACER: In-Vehicle, GPS-Based, Wireless Technology for Traffic Surveillance and Management

McNally, M. G.
Marca, J. E.
Rindt, C. R.
Koos, A. M.
2003

The fundamental principle of intelligent transportation systems is to match the complexity of travel demands with advanced supply-side analysis, evaluation, management, and control strategies. A fundamental limitation is the lack of basic knowledge of travel demands at the network level. Modeling and sensor technology is primarily limited to aggregate parameters or micro-simulations based on aggregate distributions of behavior. Global Positioning Systems (GPS) are one of several available technologies which allow individual vehicle trajectories to be recorded and analyzed. Potential...

Low Speed Collision Dynamics: Second Year Report

Tongue, Benson
Moon, Ahrie
Harriman, Doug
1996

The goal of this project is to develop a user-friendly simulation program which will allow the study of platoon dynamics in both nominal and emergency scenarios. The report discusses the issues investigated during the second phase of the project, including the inclusion of a vehicle model with an engine model, transmission model, a combined lateral and longitudinal controller, and a more detailed collision dynamics model. The overall simulation program includes individual modules that supply control input force, aerodynamic drag force, and road-tire interaction forces.

Time Space Diagrams for Thirteen Shock Waves

Coifman, Benjamin
1997

This paper presents microscopic time-space diagrams for several shock waves over 100-200m distances. The primary focus of the paper is on presenting the data rather than analysis. The diagrams should be of general interest to researchers studying traffic congestion.

Dynamic All-Red Extension at Signalized Intersection: Probabilistic Modeling and Algorithm

Zhang, Liping
Zhou, Kun
Zhang, Wei-Bin
Misener, James A.
2011

Dynamic All-Red Extension (DARE) has recently attracted research interest as a non-traditional intersection collision avoidance method. We propose a probabilistic model to predict red light running (RLR) hazard for dynamic all-red extension system. The RLR hazard, quantified by a predicted encroachment time, has contributory factors including the speed, distance and car-following status of the violator and the empirical distribution of the entry time of conflict traffic. An offline data analysis procedure is developed to set the parameters for RLR hazard prediction. Online-wise, a two-...

The Uniqueness of a Time-Dependent Equilibrium Distribution of Arrivals at a Single Bottleneck

Daganzo, Carlos F.
1985

Motorists going through a bottleneck during the morning rush hour have to time their departure times to ensure they arrive to work at a reasonable time. Traffic and congestion levels at the bottleneck depend on the motorists' work schedule and the disutility of unpunctuality. This paper shows that, under certain conditions, there is only one equilibrium order of arrivals; an order under which motorists do not have an incentive to jockey for position in the queue.

The Role of Advanced Traveler Information Systems in Incident Management

Al-deek, Haitham Mohammed
1992

This dissertation deals with the application of Advanced Traveler Information Systems (ATIS) in incident management. Using an idealized traffic corridor and deterministic queuing methods, conditions under which route guidance information is useful are identified. Benefits to traffic guided with ATIS are estimated and system performance is evaluated in diverse environments of non-recurring congestion.