Evaluation and Selection of Adaptive Traffic Control Strategies on Transportation Networks

Abstract

With numerous adaptive signal strategies to choose from and the ever-increasing cost of deploying new technologies, transportation professionals need to carefully determine the optimal locations of specific adaptive signal control strategies to maximize their benefits. An interoperable decision support system that not only recommends the best network location for deployment but also provides a seamless data exchange between various data sources will be extremely helpful. The development of a prototype geographic information system– (GIS-) based decision support system (DSS) to address some of these issues is presented. A novel software bridge is implemented to ensure data exchange between the most widely used traffic signal optimization and analysis software, Synchro and the developed GIS-based prototype, the Rutgers Adaptive Signal Control Selection (RASCS) DSS. Integrated modules of this unique GIS-based DSS tool—a macroscopic simulator, a rule-based expert system built up by using various sources, and a benefit–cost analysis module—are then described in detail. Case studies that make use of the developed tool also are presented.