Adaptive and Synchronization Signal Control Strategies for Bottleneck Area on Urban Expressway

Urban expressways in China have special features: distance between on-ramp and off-ramp is relatively short compared with this distance along freeway in developed countries normally longer than 1000m, off-ramps are usually connected with urban streets and intersections. For example, in Beijing Third Ring Road, the distances between 87.6% on-ramp and off-ramp are less than 700m, the average distance between off-ramp and its adjacent intersection is only 286m. Thus successful ramp control strategies used in Europe or U.S. may not be suitable in China. Firstly, this paper studies traffic flow characteristics at representative "bottlenecks" of Beijing urban expressways. VISSIM 5.3 (computer program) is chosen as the testing platform for studying adaptive and cooperative signal control strategies on urban expressway. Efforts are devoted to improve the capability of traffic simulation platform to simulate detailed traffic behaviors by calibrating simulation model parameters. Efficiencies of different signal control strategies in road network involving on-ramp, off-ramp, adjacent streets and intersections are compared. These strategies include that fixed time control strategy, adaptive control strategy and cooperative traffic-responsive control strategy. Results indicate that combining adaptive ramp control with cooperative signal control strategies is an efficient way to enhance road capacity and alleviate congestion in urban expressways. Moreover, layouts of loop detectors for different control strategies and their influences on control effectiveness are described in details. Finally, control efficiency regarding adaptive and cooperative signal control strategies is discussed.

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