Measuring the Equity and Efficiency of Ramp Meters

Traffic congestion has become an increasingly serious problem in many cities. Ramp metering, which maintains smooth freeway mainline flow by limiting vehicle entry at entrance ramps, has been proposed and implemented in a number of metropolitan areas in and outside the U.S. to mitigate freeway congestion. This study aims to develop both efficient and equitable freeway ramp control strategies. Traffic conditions with and without ramp metering are evaluated on several representative freeways in the Twin Cities with a comprehensive set of performance measures. A unified theory for ramp metering is proposed based on a linear programming model of freeway traffic dynamics. The most efficient ramp control algorithm is found to be also the least equitable one. A novel control objective, minimizing weighted or perceived travel time, is therefore proposed to balance efficiency and equity objectives of ramp metering. This research also develops a new family of applicable ramp metering strategies, which consider both efficiency and equity, and are demonstrated in a microscopic traffic simulator. Future studies should compare various traffic control methods under the analytical framework proposed in this report. Researchers should also pursue field experiments of the proposed multi-objective ramp control strategies.

[1]  Donald R Drew,et al.  EVALUATION OF ENTRANCE RAMP CONTROL ON A SIX-MILE FREEWAY SECTION /WITH DISCUSSION/ , 1967 .

[2]  David A. Hensher.  THE VALUATION OF TRAVEL TIME SAVINGS FOR URBAN CAR DRIVERS: EVALUATING ALTERNATIVE MODEL SPECIFICATIONS , 2000 .

[3]  J A Wattleworth,et al.  PEAK PERIOD ANALYSIS AND CONTROL OF A FREEWAY SYSTEM /WITH DISCUSSION/ , 1965 .

[4]  Carlos F. Daganzo,et al.  Using Input-Output Diagram To Determine Spatial and Temporal Extents of a Queue Upstream of a Bottleneck , 1997 .

[5]  Robert B. Noland,et al.  Socio-economic Attributes And Impacts Of Travel Reliability: A Stated Preference Approach , 1995 .

[6]  Leonard Newman,et al.  FREEWAY RAMP CONTROL--WHAT IT CAN AND CANNOT DO , 1969 .

[7]  G. J. Glasser.  Variance Formulas for the Mean Difference and Coefficient of Concentration , 1962 .

[8]  D. Levinson,et al.  Density and the Journey to Work , 1997, Growth and change.

[9]  James Robinson,et al.  RAMP METERING STATUS IN NORTH AMERICA. , 1989 .

[10]  Carlos F. Daganzo,et al.  Access control on networks with unique origin–destination paths , 2000 .

[11]  L Zhang,et al.  PREDICTION OF FREEWAY BREAKDOWN USING ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORK , 2004 .

[12]  Sam Yagar,et al.  Exploration of the Breakdown Phenomenon in Freeway Traffic , 1998 .

[13]  D M Levinson,et al.  Operational Evidence of Changing Travel Patterns: A Case Study of Montgomery County, Maryland , 1994 .

[14]  H. M. Zhang,et al.  Some general results on the optimal ramp control problem , 1996 .

[15]  David J. Lovell,et al.  ANALYZING FREEWAY TRAFFIC UNDER CONGESTION: TRAFFIC DYNAMICS APPROACH. DISCUSSION , 1999 .

[16]  H. M. Zhang,et al.  On optimal freeway ramp control policies for congested traffic corridors , 1999 .

[17]  Eil Kwon,et al.  CONTROL EMULATION METHOD FOR EVALUATING AND IMPROVING TRAFFIC-RESPONSIVE RAMP METERING STRATEGIES (ABRIDGMENT) , 1992 .

[18]  Robert B. Noland,et al.  VALUATION OF TRAVEL-TIME SAVINGS AND PREDICTABILITY IN CONGESTED CONDITIONS FOR HIGHWAY USER-COST ESTIMATION , 1999 .

[19]  Panos G Michalopoulos,et al.  Evaluation of Ramp Control Effectiveness in Two Twin Cities Freeways , 2002 .

[20]  Cynthia Taylor,et al.  Fuzzy Ramp Metering: Design Overview and Simulation Results , 1998 .

[21]  David John Lovell.  TRAFFIC CONTROL ON METERED NETWORKS WITHOUT ROUTE CHOICE , 1997 .

[22]  Markos Papageorgiou,et al.  An integrated control approach for traffic corridors , 1995 .

[23]  Cynthia Taylor,et al.  EVALUATION OF A FUZZY LOGIC RAMP METERING ALGORITHM: A COMPARATIVE STUDY AMONG THREE RAMP METERING ALGORITHMS USED IN THE GREATER SEATTLE AREA , 2000 .

[24]  Adolf D May.  Experimentation with Manual and Automatic Ramp Control , 1965 .

[25]  J. Weibull,et al.  On the Numerical Measurement of Accessibility , 1980 .

[26]  Joseph A Wattleworth.  PEAK-PERIOD CONTROL OF A FREEWAY SYSTEM : SOME THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS , 1963 .

[27]  李幼升,et al.  Ph , 1989 .

[28]  Klaus Bogenberger,et al.  Advanced Coordinated Traffic Responsive Ramp Metering Strategies , 1999 .

[29]  David Levinson,et al.  Identifying Winners and Losers in Transportation , 2008 .

[30]  A E Pisarski.  NEW PERSPECTIVES IN COMMUTING , 1992 .

[31]  Markos Papageorgiou,et al.  COORDINATED AND INTEGRATED CONTROL OF MOTORWAY NETWORKS VIA NON-LINEAR OPTIMAL CONTROL , 2002 .

[32]  Eil Kwon,et al.  Comparative Analysis of Operational Algorithms for Coordinated Ramp Metering , 2001 .

[33]  T May,et al.  TRAVEL TIME VARIABILITY AND ITS EFFECT ON TIME OF DAY CHOICE FOR THE JOURNEY TO WORK --TRANSPORTATION PLANNING METHODS. PROCEEDINGS OF SEMINAR C HELD AT THE PTRC SUMMER ANNUAL MEETING, BATH UNIVERSITY ENGLAND, 7-11 SEPTEMBER 1987, VOLUME P290 , 1987 .

[34]  Nathan H. Gartner,et al.  Dynamic control and traffic performance in a freeway corridor: a simulation study , 1991 .

[35]  Habib Haj-Salem,et al.  Ramp metering impact on urban corridor traffic: Field results , 1995 .

[36]  M. O. Lorenz,et al.  Methods of Measuring the Concentration of Wealth , 1905, Publications of the American Statistical Association.

[37]  Markos Papageorgiou,et al.  Efficiency versus fairness in network-wide ramp metering , 2001, ITSC 2001. 2001 IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems. Proceedings (Cat. No.01TH8585).

[38]  D. Levinson.  Perspectives on efficiency in transportation , 2003 .

[39]  Roy D Fonda.  AN ANALYSIS OF SHORT-TERM IMPLEMENTATION OF RAMP CONTROL ON THE DAN RYAN EXPRESSWAY , 1969 .

[40]  Markos Papageorgiou,et al.  Applications of Automatic Control Concepts to Traffic Flow Modeling and Control , 1983 .

[41]  Stephen G. Ritchie,et al.  FREEWAY RAMP METERING USING ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS , 1997 .

[42]  Tang-Hsien Chang,et al.  Optimization of mainline traffic via an adaptive co-ordinated ramp-metering control model with dynamic OD estimation , 2002 .

[43]  Markos Papageorgiou,et al.  ALINEA: A LOCAL FEEDBACK CONTROL LAW FOR ON-RAMP METERING , 1990 .