A E Radwan

EVALUATING THE IMPROVEMENTS IN TRAFFIC OPERATIONS AT A REAL-LIFE TOLL PLAZA WITH ELECTRONIC TOLL COLLECTION

This paper summarizes the improvements in traffic operations at the Electronic Toll Collection plazas of the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority (OOCEA). Automatic Vehicle Identification (AVI) was installed on all lanes of ten OOCEA plazas, with one fully dedicated AVI lane at each plaza. The results indicate that the measured throughput of the dedicated AVI lane has increased by 154%. Significant improvements were observed at the dedicated AVI lane including a 194% potential increase in capacity, average savings of 5 seconds in service time per vehicle, a reduction of 1 minute in average queueing delay and 2.5 minutes in maximum queueing delay per vehicle, and average savings of 8.5 vehicle-hours in total queueing delay per peak hour. Also, variability in the inter-vehicle time has been significantly reduced in the dedicated AVI lane. Capacity, inter-vehicle time, and service times of the mixed lanes did not change significantly because of AVI. However, arrivals have shifted to the dedicated AVI l...

The potential impact of advanced traveler information systems (ATIS) on accident rates in an urban transportation network

Advanced traveler information systems (ATIS) may have various safety implications on the transportation network. There exists the possible distracting effect of the onboard gadget on the driver. Congestion avoidance may improve traffic safety on the network. Thus, reducing congestion on freeways by diverting traffic to alternative arterials is expected to reduce the accident risk on freeways. However, safety on these arterials may be reduced as they become more congested. A methodology for predicting changes in accident rates as a result of traffic diversion by ATIS in Orlandos Transportation Network is presented.