Link-Based Signalized Arterial Progression Optimization with Practical Travel Speed

Abstract

Bandwidth is defined as the maximum amount of green time for a designated movement as it passes through an arterial. In most previous studies, bandwidth has been referred to arterial bandwidth. In practice, a balance between link bandwidth and arterial bandwidth has proven to be important in optimizing coordinated signal timing plans, because not all drivers need to pass through all the intersections on an arterial. This study proposes an algorithm on how to obtain an optimal coordinated signal timing plan with both optimal link bandwidth and optimal arterial bandwidth considering practical vehicles’ speed. The weighted link bandwidth attainability is introduced as an additional measure of effectiveness for assessing the optimization results. The link bandwidth optimization is built based on the improvement of Messer’s algorithm about bandwidth optimization. The arterial bandwidth optimization algorithm takes into consideration the weighted link bandwidth attainability while selecting phase sequences. The proposed algorithm is demonstrated in a case study, and many improvements are archived when a balanced consideration is given to both link bandwidth and arterial bandwidth. Fine-tuning of initial signal timing plan is done using practical travel speed. The evaluation results show a rather significant improvement which is achieved.