Comparison of the performance of hybrid traffic signal patterns and conventional alternatives when accounting for both pedestrians and vehicles

Traffic control systems are crucial for managing traffic flows. Their main function is to reduce interactions among users for safety reasons, while minimizing the travel times. Researchers often concentrate on the cycle length, whose impact on travel times is directly measurable. However, the choice of the signal pattern may also have a great potential to reduce travel times and unsafe situations. This potential is yet to be thoroughly investigated. In this work, we are interested in comparing different signal patterns in terms of the number of potential conflicts and delay time for both drivers and pedestrians. To this end, we first select three commonly adopted signal patterns, namely the Exclusive Pedestrian Phase (EPP), the Leading Through Interval (LTI) and the Two-Way Crossing (TWC). We then generalize existing methods for measuring user delay and safety for these three signal patterns. Moreover, we investigate a hypothetical hybrid pattern obtained by dynamically adapting the signal pattern to real-time data. The proposed methodology is applied to a case study considering an isolated intersection in Montreal, Canada. We perform computational experiments geared towards determining the best pattern according to ad hoc performance indicators and user flows. Results show that the EPP and LTI patterns generally perform better than TWC. EPP generally outperforms LTI when measuring the number of potential conflicts, while LTI outperforms EPP when considering delay times. Furthermore, the hypothetical hybrid pattern shows a positive but overall limited impact regarding both delay times and number of potential conflicts

Designing the master schedule for demand-adaptive transit systems

Abstract Demand-Adaptive Systems (DAS) display features of both traditional fixed-line bus services and purely on-demand systems such as dial-a-ride, that is they offer demand-responsive services within the framework of traditional scheduled bus transportation. A DAS bus line serves, on one hand, a given set of compulsory stops according to a predefined schedule specifying the time windows associated with each, providing the traditional use of the transit line, without requiring any reservation. On the other hand, passengers may also issue requests for transportation between two desired, optional, stops, which induces detours in the vehicle routes. The design of a DAS line is a complex planning operation that requires to determine not only its design in terms of selecting the compulsory stops, but also its master schedule in terms of the time windows associated with the compulsory stops. Designing a DAS thus combines elements of strategic and tactical planning. In this paper we focus on determining a master-schedule for a single DAS line. We propose a mathematical description and a solution framework based on the estimation of a number of statistical parameters of the demand and the DAS line service. Results of numerical experiments are also given and analyzed

Towards a muon collider

A muon collider would enable the big jump ahead in energy reach that is needed for a fruitful exploration of fundamental interactions. The challenges of producing muon collisions at high luminosity and 10 TeV centre of mass energy are being investigated by the recently-formed International Muon Collider Collaboration. This Review summarises the status and the recent advances on muon colliders design, physics and detector studies. The aim is to provide a global perspective of the field and to outline directions for future work

Towards a Muon Collider

A muon collider would enable the big jump ahead in energy reach that is needed for a fruitful exploration of fundamental interactions. The challenges of producing muon collisions at high luminosity and 10 TeV centre of mass energy are being investigated by the recently-formed International Muon Collider Collaboration. This Review summarises the status and the recent advances on muon colliders design, physics and detector studies. The aim is to provide a global perspective of the field and to outline directions for future work.Comment: 118 pages, 103 figure

Erratum: Towards a muon collider

The original online version of this article was revised: The additional reference [139] has been added. Tao Han’s ORICD ID has been incorrectly assigned to Chengcheng Han and Chengcheng Han’s ORCID ID to Tao Han. Yang Ma’s ORCID ID has been incorrectly assigned to Lianliang Ma, and Lianliang Ma’s ORCID ID to Yang Ma. The original article has been corrected

Towards a muon collider

A muon collider would enable the big jump ahead in energy reach that is needed for a fruitful exploration of fundamental interactions. The challenges of producing muon collisions at high luminosity and 10 TeV centre of mass energy are being investigated by the recently-formed International Muon Collider Collaboration. This Review summarises the status and the recent advances on muon colliders design, physics and detector studies. The aim is to provide a global perspective of the field and to outline directions for future work