Analysis of dynamic traffic control and management strategies

Abstract

This thesis investigates three effective traffic control and management strategies, namely, contraflow operations, advanced traveler information system (ATIS) and ramp metering operations to alleviate traffic congestion. Two major decision issues associate to contraflow operations - the lane configuration problem and the scheduling problem - are formulated and analyzed. Besides, a novel ATIS-based online dynamic traffic control strategy for an urban expressway-arterial corridor system is developed. For ramp metering operations, the equity issue, which is an important issue and has long been neglected, is discussed in detail. A methodology is proposed to design a fair ramp metering system that takes into account efficiency and equity issues of ramp metering. A modified cell transmission model (MCTM) is adopted to capture dynamic traffic flow conditions. Both situations whether the origin-destination (OD) trip is considered or not are present and discussed in this thesis.