Impact of Actual Travel Speed on Signal Timing Plan of Coordinated Arterials

Speed is important while developing signal coordination timing plans. Ideally, the actual vehicle speed should be used in developing signal timing plans. However, the actual travel speed could be affected by existing signal timing and the presence of other traffic. This study examines the impact of actual travel speed on a signal timing operation of an arterial in Reno, Nevada. Using GPS tools, such as GPS receiver and GPS2LT, actual travel times and travel speeds for an initial signal timing plan are collected. The GPS trajectory is drawn on the top of the time-space diagram with a GPS tool developed during the research. In the GPS trajectory, the actual travel speed between intersections can be clearly seen for three types of study runs. When the actual speed is significantly different from the speed that is used for developing the timing, expected progression based on the time-space diagram would not be achieved. A new signal coordination timing plan was developed based on the actual travel speeds. Offsets and phasing sequence are adjusted according to the new speed data, with an improved bandwidth method based on Messer's method. Fine-tuning of initial signal timing plan was done to improve the link and arterial progression bandwidth, generally link by link. The evaluation results of a case study about an arterial in Reno show rather significant improvement after the fine-tuning of initial signal timing plan with the actual travel speed is done, using VISSIM 5.30 and SYNCHRO 6.0 models.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AHB25 Traffic Signal Systems
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Wu, Xianyu
  • Tian, Zong Z
  • Hu, Peifeng
  • Yuan, Zhenzhou
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 91st Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2012-1-22 to 2012-1-26
• Date: 2012

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References;
• Pagination: 14p
• Monograph Title: TRB 91st Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Global Positioning System; Optimization; Traffic signal control systems; Traffic signal timing
• Identifier Terms: Synchro (Computer program); VISSIM (Computer model)
• Uncontrolled Terms: Vehicle speed
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; I71: Traffic Theory; I73: Traffic Control;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01367717
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 12-0815
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Apr 11 2012 11:13AM