Current Projects
Selected research projects currently being conducted
in the Smart Travel Lab are highlighted below.
Investigating Potential Benefits of Vehicle
Infrastructure Integration-Enabled Ramp
Metering
The concept of Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (VII)
has gained significant interest in the transportation
research community. While most of this interest has
focused on potential safety application, it is well
accepted that transportation operations will be a primary beneficiary of VII. Among the many potential applications of VII in transportation operations, ramp metering is of great interest since it has the potential to improve freeway operations. Given that traditional ramp metering algorithms rely on aggregated “spot” data, such as volume, density and/or speed obtained from point sensors, the availability of new data – particularly more details on each individual vehicle made available by VII – will require modified and/or new ramp metering algorithms. As such, this project will develop new “VII-enabled” ramp metering algorithms, and evaluate these algorithms in a simulation environment. At the conclusion of the study, the results will allow the research team to A) quantify the expected benefit from VII-enabled ramp metering, and B) offer suggestions for the development of production-level VII-enabled ramp metering algorithms.
Evaluation of Advanced Traffic Signal Controllers using Hardware in the Loop Simulation
Modern traffic controllers are equipped with many advanced features. One of examples is built in logics that allow lane-by-lane gap out, traffic responsive control, preemptions, etc. Even though, traffic engineers wanted to evaluate such advanced features there exist little tools available for acceptance testing. This is because existing microscopic simulation programs have not kept with the advances in the traffic controller technology. Hardware in the loop simulation, in which consisted of microscopic simulation and actual traffic controller, allows traffic engineers to evaluate the performance of advanced traffic signal controller features. This project will evaluate these advanced features available in modern traffic controllers and provide effectiveness of such features under varying traffic and geometric conditions.
Additional Current Projects >>
For other ongoing and recently concluded projects, click here.
The Archived Data Management System (ADMS) provides impetus and support for much of the research that is conducted in the Smart Travel Lab. The link below points to information about this important project.
ADMS>>
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