OPTIMIZING FLOW ON EXISTING STREET NETWORKS

THIS PROJECT WAS INITIATED TO (1) DEVELOP A PRACTICAL METHOD OF MEASURING THE DEGREE OF CHANGE IN NETWORK TRAFFIC FLOW RESULTING FROM VARIOUS SYSTEM MODIFICATIONS AND (2) EVALUATE THE DEGREE OF CHANGE RESULTING FROM PRACTICABLE MODIFICATIONS. A CONSULTING FIRM CONDUCTED 37 MAJOR EXPERIMENTS TO QUANTIFY THE EFFECT OF TRAFFIC ENGINEERING MEASURES IN SIX MAJOR CATEGORIES: DIRECTIONAL CONTROL AND LANE USE, CURB LANE CONTROLS, CHANNELIZATION, SIGNALS CONTROLS, INCLEMENT WEATHER EFFECTS, AND BUS OPERATIONS. FROM EXPERIMENTS IT WAS CON- CLUDED THAT THE SIGNAL SYSTEM OF A DOWNTOWN AREA IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ELEMENT OF ALL THE CONTROL MEDIA AVAILABLE. VERY MINOR CHANGES OF SIGNAL TIMING PRODUCED LARGE IMPROVEMENTS TO TRAFFIC FLOW. MANY OTHER TYPES OF IMPROVEMENTS SHOULD BE CONSIDERED SUBSERVIENT TO THE NEEDS OF THE SIGNAL SYSTEM. AMONG THESE ARE RESTRICTIONS TO PARKING AT INTERSECTION APPROACHES, LOCATIONS OF BUS STOPS, PROVISION OF SEPARATE LEFT-TURN LANES, MANDATORY LANE USE, AND CHANNELIZATION. A FINE-GRAINED NETWORK ASSIGNMENT MODEL USING THE FHWA ASSIGNMENT SYSTEM WAS DEVELOPED FOR THE DOWN- TOWN NEWARK STUDY AREA. THIS MODEL IS SUGGESTED FOR USE IN DETERMINING OVERALL EFFICIENCY OF THE CITY STREET NETWORK. THE OVERALL AVERAGE TRAVEL SPEED DEVELOPED FROM TOTAL TRIP TIME AND TOTAL TRIP MILEAGE IS PROPOSED FOR USE IN DEVELOPING A NETWORK LEVEL OF SERVICE. IT IS ANTICIPATED THAT THE NETWORK LEVEL OF SERVICE MAY BECOME A USEFUL MEASURE FOR DETERMINING PRIORITIES FOR THE ALLOCATION OF FUNDS IN RELATION TO NEED /NCHRP/

• Record URL:
  http://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs/nchrp/nchrp_rpt_113.pdf
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/00775614
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Distribution, posting, or copying of this PDF is strictly prohibited without written permission of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences. Unless otherwise indicated, all materials in this PDF are copyrighted by the National Academy of Sciences. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Proj 3-14, 414 PP, FIGS, TABS, 103 REF, 7 APP
• Authors:
  • Pontier, W E
  • Miller, P W
  • Kraft, W H
• Publication Date: 1971

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Serial:
  • NCHRP Report
  • Issue Number: 113
  • Publisher: Transportation Research Board
  • ISSN: 0077-5614

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Arterial highways; Bus stops; Bus transportation; Curbs; Experiments; Highway capacity; Level of service; Mathematical models; Networks; One way traffic; Optimization; Reversible traffic lanes; Signalization; Streets; Traffic assignment; Traffic flow; Traffic lanes; Traffic signal timing; Urban transportation; Weather
• Uncontrolled Terms: Channelization
• Old TRIS Terms: Lanes
• Subject Areas: Highways; Motor Carriers; Operations and Traffic Management; Public Transportation;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00226053
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS, ATRI
• Created Date: Sep 13 1971 12:00AM