"Integration of off-ramp and arterial signal controls to minimize the recurrent congestion on Capital Beltway"
Gang-Len Chang - PI
Civil & Environmental Engineering
This research intends to capture the complex interaction between freeway off-ramp flows and traffic queues at neighboring arterial intersections, as several mainline segments on the Capital Beltway are often plagued by off-ramp spillback queues that significantly degrade their operational capacity. To minimize freeway congestion due to off-ramp queues but not to incur excessive arterial delay, this study will develop a multiple-objective model to first evaluate their interrelations, and then generate the optimal off-ramp and local signal controls to achieve the preset control objective such as maximizing the total throughput or minimizing the total delay. The proposed model features its ability to reliably determine when to activate such an integrated control, and how many upstream segments should be included in the control boundaries. The solution algorithm developed for this model will be sufficiently efficient to ensure its potential for use in real time operations.
