ANALYSIS OF LARGE-SCALE TRAFFIC INCIDENTS AND EN ROUTE DIVERSIONS DUE TO CONGESTION ON FREEWAYS

En route traffic diversions have been identified as one of the effective traffic operations strategies in traffic incident management. The employment of such traffic operations will help relieve the congestion, save travel time, as well as reduce energy use and tailpipe emissions. However, little attention has been paid to quantifying the benefits by deploying such traffic operations under large-scale traffic incident-induced congestion on freeways, specifically under the connected vehicle environment. New Connected and Automated Vehicle technology, known as “CAV”, has the potential to further increase the benefits by deploying en route traffic diversions. This dissertation research is intended to study the benefits of en route traffic diversion by analyzing large-scale incident-related characteristics, as well as optimizing the signal plans under the diversion framework. The dissertation contributes to the art of traffic incident management by 1) understanding the characteristics of large-scale traffic incidents, and 2) developing a framework under the CAV to study the benefits of en route diversions.Towards the end, 4 studies are linked together for the dissertation. The first study will be focusing on the analysis of the large-scale traffic incidents by using the traffic incident data collected on East Tennessee major roadways. Specifically, incident classification, incident duration prediction, as well as sequential real-time prediction are studied in detail. The second study mainly focuses on truck-involved crashes. By incorporating injury severity information into the incident duration analysis, the second study developed a bivariate analysis framework using a unique dataset created by matching an incident database and a crash database. Then, the third study estimates and evaluates the benefit of deploying the en route traffic diversion strategy under the large-scale traffic incident-induced congestion on freeways by using simulation models and incorporating the analysis outcomes from the other two studies. The last study optimizes the signal timing plans for two intersections, which generates some implications along the arterial corridor under connected vehicles environment to gain more benefits in terms of travel timing savings for the studies network in Knoxville, Tennessee. The implications of the findings (e.g. faster response of agencies to the large-scale incidents reduces the incident duration, penetration of CAVs in the traffic diversion operations further reduces traffic network system delay), as well as the potential applications, will be discussed in this dissertation study

Interbasin Water Transfers and Water Scarcity in a Changing World: A Solution or a Pipedream?

The world is increasingly forced to face the challenge of how to ensure access to adequate water resources for expanding populations and economies, whilst maintaining healthy freshwater ecosystems and the vital services they provide. Now the growing impacts of climate change are exacerbating the problem of water scarcity in key regions of the world. One popular way for governments to distribute water more evenly across the landscape is to transfer it from areas with perceived surpluses, to those with shortages.While there is a long history of water transfers from ancient times, as many societies reach the limits of locally renewable water supplies increasingly large quantities of water are being moved over long distances, from one river basin to another. Since the beginning of dam building that marked the last half of the 1900s more that 364 large-scale interbasin water transfer schemes (IBTs) have been established that transfer around 400 km³ of water per year (Shiklomanov 1999). IBTs are now widely touted as the quick fix solution to meeting escalating water demands. One estimate suggests that the total number of largescale water transfer schemes may rise to between 760 and 1 240 by 2020 to transfer up to 800 km³ of water per year (Shiklomanov 1999).The wide range of IBT projects in place, or proposed, has provoked the preparation of this review, including seven case studies from around the globe. It builds on previous assessments and examines the costs and benefits of large scale IBTs. This report assesses related, emerging issues in sustaining water resources and ecosystems, namely the virtual water trade, expanding use of desalination, and climate change adaptation. It is based on WWF's 2007 publication "Pipedreams? Interbasin water transfers and water shortages".The report concludes that while IBTs can potentially solve water supply issues in regions of water shortage - they come with significant costs. Large scale IBTs are typically very high cost, and thus economically risky, and they usually also come with significant social and environmental costs; usually for both the river basin providing and the river basin receiving the water

Instruments of Transport Policy.

The material in this Working Paper was generated as input to DETR's Guidance on the Methodology for Multi Modal Studies (GOMMMS). DETR subsequently decided only to provide summary information on transport policy measures, and to leave the consultants involved in individual multi modal studies to make their own assessment of individual policy measures in the context of specific study areas. It has been decided to make this fuller document available as a reference source. The purpose of the review of policy measures was to provide summary information on the range of policy measures available, experience of their use and, based on past studies, their potential contribution to the range of policy objectives specified for GOMMMS. The review was based on an earlier one included in the Institution of Highways and Transportation's Guidelines on Developing Urban Transport Strategies (1996). This material was updated using references published since 1996 and expanded to cover policy measures relevant in inter-urban areas. It had been intended to circulate it for comment before publishing a revised version. However, DETR decided to use an abridged version before this consultation was complete. It should be borne in mind that this document has not, therefore, undergone the peer assessment which had been intended. To avoid unnecessary further work, the material is presented as it had been drafted for the GOMMMS Guidance document. The only modifications have been to change the chapter and paragraph numbers, and to remove the cross references to other parts of the Guidance document

A practical approach to network-based processing

The usage of general-purpose processors externally attached to routers to play virtually the role of active coprocessors seems a safe and cost-effective approach to add active network capabilities to existing routers. This paper reviews this router-assistant way of making active nodes, addresses the benefits and limitations of this technique, and describes a new platform based on it using an enhanced commercial router. The features new to this type of architecture are transparency, IPv4 and IPv6 support, and full control over layer 3 and above. A practical experience with two applications for path characterization and a transport gateway managing multi-QoS is described.Most of this work has been funded by the IST project GCAP (Global Communication Architecture and Protocols for new QoS services over IPv6 networks) IST-1999-10 504. Further development and application to practical scenarios is being supported by IST project Opium (Open Platform for Integration of UMTS Middleware) IST-2001-36063 and the Spanish MCYT under projects TEL99-0988-C02-01 and AURAS TIC2001-1650-C02-01.Publicad

Perception of VMS Effectiveness: A British and Canadian Perspective

Variable Message Signs are becoming a common sight on the UK Motorway network and have been well established on North American Freeways for several decades, as highway authorities strive to better manage scarce road network resources and provide travellers with up-to-date traffic information and alternative route options. The flexibility of VMS allows them to display varied information on road conditions, safety messages, alternate routes, speed limits, and general travel information. The steady growth in deployment of VMS in the next few years will lead to enhanced use of information to better manage highways and control levels of traffic congestion. The effectiveness of VMS in achieving this goal, however, depends entirely upon driver response to and perception of the information displayed. Previous research has indicated that VMS information needs to be timely, accurate, easily understandable and also believable for motorists to take any notice of it and act accordingly. This paper will report on findings from several attitudinal questionnaire surveys, conducted in and around London and Manchester in the UK, and Toronto in Canada, to determine VMS effectiveness. The studies focus on driver perception of the effectiveness of different types of information displayed and drivers’ preferences for future information provision

Testing demand responsive shared transport services via agent-based simulations

Demand Responsive Shared Transport DRST services take advantage of Information and Communication Technologies ICT, to provide on demand transport services booking in real time a ride on a shared vehicle. In this paper, an agent-based model ABM is presented to test different the feasibility of different service configurations in a real context. First results show the impact of route choice strategy on the system performance

Effectiveness of Variable Message Signs Using Empirical Loop Detector Data

The effectiveness of Variable Messages Signs (VMS) on route guidance is assessed by a discrete probit choice model that estimates the proportion of vehicles that diverts to an alternative routes given the characteristics of different messages. A before–and–after study is also conducted to quantitatively evaluate the network wide reduction of travel time and total delay of VMS systems. We find that VMS has no obvious effect on reduction of travel time, but can reduce the total delay.Route Choice, Diversion Behavior, Cost Benefit Analysis

Diverter Decision Aiding for In-Flight Diversions

It was determined that artificial intelligence technology can provide pilots with the help they need in making the complex decisions concerning en route changes in a flight plan. A diverter system should have the capability to take all of the available information and produce a recommendation to the pilot. Phase three illustrated that using Joshua to develop rules for an expert system and a Statice database provided additional flexibility by permitting the development of dynamic weighting of diversion relevant parameters. This increases the fidelity of the AI functions cited as useful in aiding the pilot to perform situational assessment, navigation rerouting, flight planning/replanning, and maneuver execution. Additionally, a prototype pilot-vehicle interface (PVI) was designed providing for the integration of both text and graphical based information. Advanced technologies were applied to PVI design, resulting in a hierarchical menu based architecture to increase the efficiency of information transfer while reducing expected workload. Additional efficiency was gained by integrating spatial and text displays into an integrated user interface