Simulation and Analysis of the Variable Speed Limit Controls on Highway Maintenance

Abstract

Despite of the fact that the traffic control zone for maintenance work (work zone) has been recognized as one of major priorities to guarantee the traffic safety, only one conventional posted speed limit (PSL) strategy is applied into the organization and management. This article presents the strategy of the variable speed limit (VSL) on highway work zones that brings about gradual deceleration and low speed variance. To evaluate the safety of the proposed VSL strategy, this study uses the microscopic simulation software VISSM to estimate the traffic flow and adopt transversal and longitudinal coefficients of safety (MSDE and cv) to compare the different speed limit strategies. The results of simulation and analysis confirm that VSL yield a substantial decrease the traffic turbulence caused by speed limit and increase the traffic safety throughout work zones.

Design and Simulation of a Variable Speed Limit System for Freeway Bottleneck Areas

“…They evaluated the effectiveness of integrating the proportional integral regulator into the VSL system. Shi et al [23] proposed a VSL strategy based on a construction area, taking MSDE as the evaluation index. They verified through VISSIM software that the strategy could improve the security of the construction area by reducing conflicts.…”