Travel Behavior

Using Vehicles Equipped with Toll Tags as Probes for Providing Travel Times

John, Wright
Dahlgren, Joy
2001

The introduction of electronic toll collection on the eight bridges crossing San Francisco Bay has provided the means for a relatively simple and low cost system for measuring travel times on many Bay Area bridges and roads. The toll tags sued for electronic toll collection can be read by readers at various locations on congested roads. The time of reading is recorded so that the time difference between when a vehicle passes one reader and passes the next can be computed. Such a system is already operating in Houston, where it is the primary source of travel time data. Capital costs per...

Brake Dynamics Effect On IVHSLane Capacity

Maciua, Dragos B.
1994

This paper attempts to assess the effects of brake system dynamics and inter-vehicle communication delays (microscopic characteristics) on the capacity of an automated highway system (macroscopic characteristics). Simulations were conducted to investigate the relationship between the microscopic and macroscopic characteristics. Recommendations are made regarding the maximum desired delays, intra-platoon and inter-platoon distances and platoon size in order to achieve the highest possible capacity while maintaining a high degree of safety.

Behavioral Impacts Of Recurring And Incident Congestion And Response To Advanced Traveler Information Systems In The Bay Area: An Overview

Khattak, Asad J.
1993

The objective of this study is to understand how people deal with congestion and how they might respond to a multimodal Advanced Traveler Information System (ATIS). Travelers' route, departure time and mode selection decisions in response to incident and recurring congestion were investigated through a survey of Bay Area automobile commuters. This document summarizes the survey methodology, assesses representativeness of the sample and discusses the initial insights obtained from uni-variate and bi-variate analysis.

Methodologies For Assessing The Impacts Of Highway Capacity Enhancements On Travel Behavior

Liu, Heng
Hall, Randolph
1998

Acceptance of ITS components that are designed to increase capacity will hinge on the extent to which additional capacity induces additional travel. This study addressed methodologies for studying the effects of capacity on travel: 1) before and after studies or travel times and volumes in corridors in which capacity had been increased, 2) surveys of users of routes on which capacity had been increased, and 3) statistical changes in county VMT as a function of freeway capacity. On I-80 in the Bay Area, the site selected for the investigation, travel times and volumes were quite variable....

Traveler Response to New Dynamic Information Sources: Analyzing Corridor and Area-Wide Behavioral Surveys

Yim, Youngbin
Khattak, Asad J.
Raw, Jeremey
2004

Intelligent Transportation Systems present a well-known innovation opportunity to address urban congestion and allow greater access to transportation networks. New sources of travel information are emerging rapidly and they are likely to significantly impact traveler decisions and transportation network performance. To assess the value and impact of these new sources, this paper develops a comprehensive conceptual model based on information processing and traveler response. Specifically, the model accounts for the effect of information source, content and quality on information access and...

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...

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...

Dynamic Traffic Assignment For Automated Highway Systems: A Two-lane Highway With Speed Constancy

Tsao, H. S. Jacob
1996

Dynamic traffic assignment through analytical modeling and optimization has been widely accepted by the IVHS R&D community as a promising traffic control tool for understanding and relieving traffic congestion on conventional highways and city streets. Due to the completely controlled nature of AHS traffic, dynamic assignment of AHS traffic is even more promising. One added dimension of complexity associated with AHS dynamic traffic assignment is lane assignment. Lane changes, for fully utilizing AHS capacity or for exiting, incur disturbances to and hence reduction of longitudinal...

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...