ROUTE PLANNING AND GUIDANCE: POTENTIAL BENEFITS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS

This paper resulted from part of the intelligent transportation systems (ITS) architecture evaluation study that the authors have been undertaking as part of the Rockwell Team. The performance of route planning and guidance (RPG) was simulated in the scenario of Detroit, Michigan (nicknamed "Urbansville" in the project), which is arguably one of the largest networks ever coded for studying the impact of RPG. The RPG simulation experiment was designed from the perspectives of potential RPG users and public agencies. Results indicated that RPG introduces positive benefits to the system in terms of average travel time reductions and overall network speed increases, and does so with only minor increases in total network travel. This positive trend does not diminish with larger market penetrations of RPG.