Integrated Corridor Management: Cooperative Signal Control with Freeway Operations and Ramp Metering (Project B4)

Freeways and intersecting arterials often operate without coordination of their operation. However, demand at an on-ramp depends on the discharge of traffic from the upstream interchange or intersection. Innovative signal control strategies can help manage this on-ramp demand and the resulting downstream queues. Similarly, ramp metering strategies have been in place to improve the flow of traffic on freeway facilities. When the traffic congestion on the freeway facility is high, metering rates increase, resulting in longer queues along the on-ramp. Such queues may eventually spill back to the upstream intersection or interchange. When such intersections are along an arterial corridor with high traffic demands, queue spillback from ramps or downstream signals can disrupt operations on the entire facility. One way to remedy the long queues is to flush queued vehicles along on-ramps, which leads to deteriorating traffic performance on the freeway facility. There is a possibility to avoid these conditions when the traffic signals at the interchange and arterial corridor leading to it (see Figure 1) are controlled considering freeway operations and work together with the ramp metering signals. The interchange and arterial corridor signals can help ramp metering signals in regulating the flow toward the freeway. It can also avoid wasting green time to the movements entering the ramp when the storage area is full. Strategies can be implemented such that instead of having a long queue on an on-ramp (or a downstream congested signal) that can spillback to upstream intersections, the queue can be distributed across the arterial corridor. This queue distribution will not only improve traffic performance on the freeway facility, but it can also improve progression on the arterial corridor. The main objective of this project is to develop an integrated corridor management tool that cooperatively coordinates the control of the signalized intersections and flow from the on-ramps aiming to reduce congestion along both the freeway facility and the arterial facility in an integrated corridor management (ICM) operation. This research proposes to develop such a tool and test it for two on-ramps and associated arterial corridors under various operational scenarios to provide guidelines for state DOTs on how to manage traffic congestion on arterial corridors at the presence of on-ramp and/or arterial queue spillback. The tool will be capable of recommending optimal signal timings along the arterial corridor as a function of freeway operations; and cooperative signal timing and ramp metering at the on-ramps (if meters are present). NCSU has developed a theoretical tool for signal timing and traffic metering in urban street networks that will be used in this study as a benchmark. Also UF is currently developing methodologies for the HCM to analyze corridor operations (NCHRP 15-57) considering spillback from freeways into arterials. We will leverage this work and incorporate the results of this proposed work into the NCHRP 15-57 engine and eventually into the HCS. Another related effort is a current STRIDE project conducted by FIU and UF that is developing a machine learning approach for the selection of signal timing plans.

• Record URL:
  https://stride.ce.ufl.edu/stride-project-b4/

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $280113
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3551747104

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Southeastern Transportation Research, Innovation, Development and Education Center (STRIDE)

  University of Florida
  365 Weil Hall
  Gainesville, FL  United States  32611

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  U.S. Department of Transportation Research and Innovative Technology Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, S.E.
  Washington, DC,     20590
• Project Managers:

  Tucker-Thomas, Dawn

• Performing Organizations:

  North Carolina State University, Raleigh

  College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
  Department of Soil Sciences, Campus Box 7619
  Raleigh, NC  United States  27695-7619
• Principal Investigators:

  Hajbabaie, Ali

• Start Date: 20200816
• Expected Completion Date: 20221130
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Arterial highways; Freeway operations; Integrated corridor management; Optimization; Ramp metering; Software; Traffic signal control systems
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01768217
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Southeastern Transportation Research, Innovation, Development and Education Center (STRIDE)
• Contract Numbers: 69A3551747104
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Mar 25 2021 8:37PM