Traffic Flow Models and Impact of Combined Lane Change and Speed Limit Control on Environment in Case of High Truck Traffic Volumes: A National Center for Sustainable Transportation Research Report

This report presents the work performed in collaboration with University of California, Riverside (UCR) as part of a project to University of California, Davis funded by the California Energy Commission (CEC). The aim of the project is to research intelligent traffic control strategies, which will have positive impact on the environment by reducing fuel consumption and pollution levels in areas where the truck volume is relatively high, using as an example for demonstration a network adjacent to the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The work is divided into two parts. The first part involves the development of a microscopic traffic simulation network in a selected area around the Ports of Long Beach/Los Angeles in collaboration with UCR to be used for simulation studies of different Intelligent Transportation Technologies for traffic flow control. The second part deals with the evaluation of the impact of combined variable speed limit (VSL) and lane change control on the environment during highway incidents where the volume of trucks is relatively high. The authors use the simulation model developed in the first part to carry out microscopic Monte-Carlo traffic flow simulations of traffic in order to evaluate the benefits of combined VSL and lane change control during incidents on I-710 that involve closure of lanes and capacity drops. The authors demonstrated that this combined control strategy is able to generate consistent improvements with respect to travel time, safety, and environmental impact under different traffic conditions and incident scenarios.