Development and Application of Control Strategies for Signalized Intersections in Coordinated Systems

Abstract

Modern controllers permit traffic signals in coordinated systems to operate as pretimed, semiactuated or fully actuated to improve the traffic performance at the particular intersection or over the total system. Criteria were established for selecting the type of control, and timing strategies were developed for signals in coordinated systems. The proposed strategies were evaluated through simulation on 14 representative real-world arterials and grid networks. Based on the analysis of the simulation results, guidelines were formulated to assist practicing traffic engineers in selecting the most appropriate control strategies at specific intersections in coordinated signal systems. The guidelines were then applied to select the type of signal control at several intersections in the City of Los Angeles. The results from before and after field studies indicate that the recommended control strategies improved traffic performance, and the study guidelines can be used as an operating tool for traffic signal management.

Real-Time Arterial Traffic Signal Performance Measures

“…Recent field studies (21,22,23) and simulations (24,17) have been conducted with regard to coordinated operation that have touched on fully actuated coordinated phases. Some guidelines (23,25) have been written on the selection of control strategies for actuated signals in coordinated systems.…”

“…Recent field studies (21,22,23) and simulations (24,17) have been conducted with regard to coordinated operation that have touched on fully actuated coordinated phases. Some guidelines (23,25) have been written on the selection of control strategies for actuated signals in coordinated systems. System improvements have been reported from using fully actuated coordinated phases in terms of performance measures such as floating-car travel times (21), queues and number of stops (22), and delay (21,22,23,24,17).…”

“…Some guidelines (23,25) have been written on the selection of control strategies for actuated signals in coordinated systems. System improvements have been reported from using fully actuated coordinated phases in terms of performance measures such as floating-car travel times (21), queues and number of stops (22), and delay (21,22,23,24,17). However, there is no published work comparing the performance of actuated coordinated phases versus non-actuated coordinated phases.…”

Coordination of semi‐actuated signals on arterials

“…Skabardonis et al . evaluated, using NETSIM microsimulation, fixed‐time, semi‐actuated, and fully actuated control on urban arterials and in grid networks, and offered guidelines for their implementation under different traffic conditions. Shafahi et al .…”

Benefits to signal timing optimization and ITS to corridor operations

“…In the area of signal system type, Skabardonis, Bertini, and Gallagher (1999) performed research in the selection between pretimed, semi-actuated, and fully actuated control on arterials and grid networks based on cross street traffic and turning movements. While they did not propose any specific signal optimization algorithms, their findings include two interesting observations that come to bear on the research at hand.…”