Traffic Signal Retiming to Improve Corridor Performance
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Volume 147, Issue 1
Abstract
Traffic signal retiming involves periodically updating existing signal coordination plans of signalized corridors. Nevertheless, there are still several limitations with the current signal retiming practice, such as managing a large set of signal coordination data, optimizing coordination parameters, diagnosing timing errors, and assessing signal coordination performance. To fill these gaps, this research introduces a novel signal retiming approach that offers transportation engineers an alternative way to assess and improve the operation of existing coordinated corridors. It allows for displaying the vehicle trajectories in the time-space diagram (TSD), based on which, transportation engineers could diagnose the potential issues with a signal coordination plan and develop an optimized signal coordination plan for the corridor. In addition, a unique signal performance index (SPI), which took into account average travel speed, number of stops, cycle length, and segment length adjustments, was developed to grade the performance of a signal coordination plan. A total of 38 signal coordination plans were applied on 8 signalized corridors in the City of Reno, Nevada, based on the proposed signal retiming approach. Through a before and after study, this research concluded that traffic signal retiming considerably improved the travel speed of the corridors and reduced delay for coordinated movements at signals. An SPI level of 76% of the retimed signal coordination plans was increased, and 16% of the retimed plans witnessed increases in either speed score or stop score. These case studies support that the proposed signal retiming approach is applicable for field practices.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code used during this study were provided by a third party. Direct requests for these materials may be made to the provider as indicated in the Acknowledgments.
Acknowledgments
This research was sponsored by the Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) of Washoe County, Nevada. The authors thank Andrew Jayankura and Kurt Dietrich from RTC for their discussions throughout the research and help with field implementation of the developed signal timing plans and Dr. Dali Wei from Texas Tech University for helping with the development of the Signal Performance Index. Authors Guangchuan Yang and Dongmei Lin were Graduate Research Assistants at the University of Nevada, Reno, when conducting this research.
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Published In
Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Volume 147 • Issue 1 • January 2021
Copyright
© 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 13, 2019
Accepted: Sep 2, 2020
Published online: Nov 11, 2020
Published in print: Jan 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Apr 11, 2021
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