Traffic Operations and Management

Economic Impact of Traffic Incidents on North Carolina’s Interstate Facilities: Final Report, January 2008

Khattak, AJ
Teague, C
Pan, X
Fan, Y
Rodriguez, D
2008

Unexpected delays due to traffic incidents represent a significant proportion of overall delay, especially in urban areas. The resulting uncertainty can represent major costs to businesses and travelers, as well as restrict employment opportunities. This study focuses on North Carolina’s Interstate facilities and businesses across the State that rely on these facilities for their daily operations and are influenced by traffic congestion due to their shipping needs. The first portion...

Anonymous Vehicle Tracking for Real-Time Freeway and Arterial Street Performance Measurement

Ritchie, Stephen G.
Park, Seri
Oh, Cheol
Jeng, Shin-Ting (Cindy)
Tok, Andre
2005

This research involved an important extension of existing field-implemented and tested PATH research by the authors on individual vehicle reidentification, to develop methods for assessing freeway and arterial (and transit) system performance for the Caltrans PeMS (Performance Measurement System). PeMS has been adopted by Caltrans as the standard tool for assessing freeway system performance, but lacks capabilities for assessing arterial and transit system performance, and strategies that combine freeways, arterials and/or transit and commercial vehicle fleets. It was shown that the...

Transient Vehicle Aerodynamics In Four-car Platoons

Chen, A. L.
Savas, Omer
Hedrick, Karl
1997

The vehicles in a platoon will experience transient aerodynamic forces as vehicles leave and join the platoon at various locations. A platoon of scale vehicle models is placed in a wind tunnel and measurements are made of the transient forces and moments as one of the vehicles is moved into and out of the platoon. The results from the wind tunnel experiments will allow the computer vehicle control algorithms to better predict the transient aerodynamics the vehicles in the platoon will encounter during leaving and joining maneuvers. \par Since a lane change (either leaving or joining a...

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.

Commuters' Normal And Shift Decisions In Unexpected Congestion: Pre-trip Response To Advanced Traveler Information Systems

Khattak, Asad
Polydoropoulou, Amalia
Ben-akiva, Moshe
1996

This report presents a study whose objective is to explore how people deal with unexpected congestion during the pre-trip stage and how they might respond to Advanced Traveler Information Systems (ATIS). Travelers' route, departure time and mode selection decisions were investigated through a survey of San Francisco Bay Area automobile commuters. The effects of various factors are examined, such as sources of congestion information, trip characteristics, and route attributes. The pre-trip response to future ATIS technologies is explored through stated preferences.

Commuters’ Normal and Shift Decisions in Unexpected Congestion: En Route Responses to Advanced Traveler Information Systems Volume 2

Polydoropoulou, A.
Ben-akiva, M.
Khattak, A.
Lauprete, G.
1996

Advanced Traveler Information Systems (ATIS) are being developed to provide travelers with real-time information about traffic conditions. To evaluate the benefits of ATIS products and services, questions concerning potential market, usage, and travel response must be addressed. This paper focuses on en-route travel response to ATIS. The main objective is to explore how travelers deal with unexpected congestion and how they might respond to qualitative, quantitative, prescriptive and predictive information. Data on travelers’ route switching decisions are obtained through a survey of...

Bay Area Simulation and Ramp Metering Study

Gardes, Yonnel
May, Adolf D.
Dahlgren, Joy
Skarbardonis, Alex
2002

This research project focuses on the investigation of a portion of the southbound morning peak I-680 freeway facility, between I-580 in Pleasanton and SR 237 in San Jose. The project provided an opportunity for testing the Paramics model capabilities to replicate freeway traffic conditions, and assess to what extend the existing model can simulate various operational strategies such as HOV lanes and ramp metering.

Section Related Measures of Traffic System Performance: Final Report

Ritchie, Stephen
Sun, Carlos
1998

This project describes a new set of advanced traffic surveillance techniques that are based on inductive vehicle waveforms and pattern recognition technology. Focus is on demonstrating and evaluating a new method for obtaining true selection related performance measures, such as section travel time and section density, for freeways. The report also discusses methods for the measurement of lane-by-lane traffic movement and specific origin/destination demands.

Optimal Sensor Requirements

Ban, Xuegang (Jeff)
Bayen, Alexandre
Chu, Lianyu
Danczyk, Adam
Herrera, Juan‐Carlos
Herring, Ryan
Liu, Henry X.
Margulici, J.D.
Tossavainen, Olli‐Pekka
Work, Daniel
2009

PATH Task ORder 6328 addresses the optimal deployment of traffic detectors on freeway to ensure that adequate information is collected at the lowest possible cost. The project team produced a study framework and tools that can be applied locally to test the sensitivity of traffic data quality to detectors location and spacing, and ultimately recommend a deployment plan.Various types of traffic detectors, including loop detectors, radars, toll tag readers and video cameras are deployed on highways. They provide the data needed to run traffic management applications such as ramp metering...

Definition and Evaluation of Bus and Truck Automation Operations Concepts

Tsao, H.-S. Jacob
Botha, Jan L.
2002

Traffic congestion will continue to worsen and likely worsen at a faster rate than ever. People throughput and freight throughput have become critical issues for California and the rest of the nation. PATH has been funding a one-year research project entitled "Definition and Evaluation of Bus and Truck Automation Operations Concepts," proposed by the authors. This report summarizes the results of the research project achieved during the first six months. During those six months, we reviewed literature and developed operating concepts for both urban bus automation and inter-city truck...