Exploring the Effect of Variability of Urban System Characteristics in the Network Capacity

Mobility and transportation are two of the leading indicators of economic growth of a society. As cities around the world grow rapidly and more people and modes compete for limited urban space to travel, there is an increasing need to understand how this space is used for transportation and how it can be managed to improve accessibility for everyone. In a recent paper Daganzo and Geroliminis explored the connection between network structure and a network’s Macroscopic Fundamental Diagram (MFD) for urban neighborhoods with cars controlled by traffic signals and derived an analytical theory for the MFD using Variational Theory. Information needed to estimate this network MFD’s are average network (total length of roads in lane-km, number of lanes, length of links), control (signal offsets, green phase and cycle time) and traffic (free flow speed, congested wave speed, jam density, capacity) characteristics. However in previous studies, Variational Theory has been applied only in cities with deterministic values of the above variables for the whole network and by ignoring the effect of turns. In the study the authors are aiming to generate an MFD for streets with variable link lengths and signal characteristics and understand the effect of variability for different cities and signal structures. Furthermore, this variability gives the opportunity to mimic the effect of turning movements and heterogeneity in driver’s behavior. This will be a key issue in planning the signal regimes such a way that maximizes the network capacity and/or the density range of the capacity.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Boyaci, Burak
  • Geroliminis, Nikolas
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 90th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2011-1-23 to 2011-1-27
• Date: 2011

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: DVD
• Features: Figures; References;
• Pagination: 22p
• Monograph Title: TRB 90th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Accessibility; Economic growth; Highway capacity; Mobility; Traffic congestion; Traffic flow; Traffic flow rate; Traffic signal cycle; Traffic signal timing; Urban areas
• Uncontrolled Terms: Network capacity
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01334297
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 11-2040
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Mar 28 2011 8:38AM