Lane-Based Queue Length Estimation in Heterogeneous Traffic Flow Consisting of Cars and Buses
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Volume 146, Issue 2
Abstract
Queue length is the most important traffic evaluation index used for traffic signal control at signalized intersections. Most previous studies focused on estimating the queue length in homogeneous traffic flow, but they ignored the difference of the vehicle arrival and the change of traffic flow parameters in heterogeneous traffic flow. In this paper, the authors first use the mixed platoon dispersion model (MPDM) and modify it based on the variation of queue length to estimate the arrival of cars and buses. Furthermore, the heterogeneous traffic flow parameters are analyzed using the heterogeneous traffic flow model and the queue length is estimated with the shock waves of the mixed classes. This approach fully describes the relationship between the disparate upstream traffic arrivals (due to vehicles making different turns) and the variation of the incremental queue accumulation (IQA), and makes up for the shortcomings of the uniform arrival assumption in previous research. The model was tested in a field experiment, the results of which show that the model has satisfactory accuracy and robustness. In addition, its precision is higher than that of the queue length estimation using a single-class model that uses the passenger car unit (PCU) approach to capture the heterogeneity. The limitations of the proposed model are also discussed in this paper.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, and code generated or used during the study appear in the published article.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61364019) and the Key Laboratory of Urban ITS Technology Optimization and Integration Ministry of Public Security of China (Grant No. 2017KFKT04).
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Published In
Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Volume 146 • Issue 2 • February 2020
Copyright
©2019 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 15, 2018
Accepted: Jun 27, 2019
Published online: Nov 29, 2019
Published in print: Feb 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Apr 29, 2020
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