Work Journey Rescheduling: Results and Conclusions.

An assessment was made of the effects of changes in working hours on traffic conditions in the city centre of Wakefield. The study used survey data arid modelling techniques which are described fully elsewhere, and summarised in section 2 of this report. This report concentrates on the results of the study and the conclusions to be drawn from them. Assessments were made of traffic conditions had the current level of flexible and staggered hours operation not been introduced, and as the result of four different levels of increased rescheduling of work journeys. In all cases, results were presented in terms of changes in the temporal distribution of trip ends, cordon flows, and the network parameters of vehicle hours, vehicle kilometres, average speed and vehicle delay. In the peak 15 minutes car driver trip ends would have been 15% higher without current work hour arrangements, and 11% lower with further rescheduling. Changes in car driver trips entering the central area would have been about half as great as these changes in trip ends. Because the network is not operating at capacity, these changes would have had little effect on network performance generally, but time spent in queues, and delays on two congested approaches would have changed in the peak 15 minutes by + 20%. The report discusses the reasons for these relatively small changes and suggests criteria for identifying those cities in which work journey rescheduling could more successfully reduce congestion. It also recommends potential improvements in the analytical process adopted

Control of Congestion at Highly Saturated Signalised Intersections: Experiments on Rama 4 Road, Bangkok

INTRODUCTION This working paper is the third in a series of three on the control of congestion at highly saturated signalised intersections. The other papers in the series are: WP 220 Control of Congestion at Highly Saturated Signalised Intersections: 1 - Survey Methods WP 221 Control of Congestion at Highly Saturated Signalised Intersections: 2 - Experiments at an Isolated Junction. After a brief explanation of the purpose of the study, and the part played by the Rama 4 experiments, this paper describes how the input data for the experiments was collected, updated and prepared for use in standard signal setting programs. The conduct of the actual experiment is then described followed by results and conclusions thereof

Work Journey Rescheduling – Model Development Analysis.

Using Wakefield as a case study, a method was developed of testing the effects on traffic of several different work journey rescheduling strategies. The method consisted essentially of assigning a series of six 0-D matrices to the Wakefield network, each matrix representing the trips for consecutive 15 minute periods over the morning peak. The six matrices were obtained by firstly disaggregating the l 1/2 hr peak matrix by purpose (into home-based work, commercial vehicle, and other trips) and then disaggregating each of these three matrices by time. This temporal disaggregation was based, for the home based work trips, on employee arrival profiles by zone, and for the CV and other trips on cordon crossing profiles. The different strategies were modelled by making adjustments to the parameters of the employee arrival profiles. Other relevant papers in this series are WP 150 Work Journey Rescheduling : Report of Surveys, and WP 168 Work Journey Reschediuling : Results and conclusions

Priority Management for Urban Arterials. Transferability of Techniques: Hypothetical Arterials.

A series of hypothetical corridors have been simulated, representing a range of junction spacings, capacity distribution, availability of parallel routes, bus flows and routing patterns. These have been used to test a range of traffic management measures designed to increase capacity, improve public transport operations and calm traffic. All measures have been assessed in terms of their impact on travel costs and conclusions have been drawn in terms of the appropriateness of different measures in differing contexts

Work Journey Rescheduling - Report of Surveys.

In order to model the possible effects of rescheduling the work journey on city centre peak period traffic congestion, it was necessary to obtain information about the current employment position in the city centre, and about traffic conditions in the peak period. To this end, a series of surveys were designed and implemented to collect information from a stratified sample of centrally located employers; a sample of their employees; and about traffic conditions between the hours of 07.30 and 09.30 along selected routes leading into the city centre. Problems in running the surveys were encountered and overcome, and the resulting information covered: - Employee numbers, their permitted work hours, and the type of schedule worked per employer. - The Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) of each employer. - Car parking facilities provided by employer. - Bus facilities provided by employer. - Origin of employees' journey to work. - Mode(s) used in employees' journey to work. - Employees' actual arrival at and start work times, together with departure from work time, for the week preceeding the survey. - Personal characteristics of employees. - Structure of employees' households. - Journey times and traffic flows along selected corridors. The data thus collected was used to provide a base situation against which modelled alternative work hour strategies could be tested

The development of an automatic method of safety monitoring at Pelican Crossings

This paper reports on the development of a method for automatic monitoring of safety at Pelican crossings. Historically, safety monitoring has typically been carried out using accident data, though given the rarity of such events it is difficult to quickly detect change in accident risk at a particular site. An alternative indicator sometimes used is traffic conflicts, though this data can be time consuming and expensive to collect. The method developed in this paper uses vehicle speeds and decelerations collected using standard in-situ loops and tubes, to determine conflicts using vehicle decelerations and to assess the possibility of automatic safety monitoring at Pelican crossings. Information on signal settings, driver crossing behaviour, pedestrian crossing behaviour and delays, and pedestrian-vehicle conflicts was collected synchronously through a combination of direct observation, video analysis, and analysis of output from tube and loop detectors. Models were developed to predict safety, i.e. pedestrian-vehicle conflicts using vehicle speeds and decelerations

Car Sharing and Peak Spreading Studies in Sheffield: Final Report.

This Study of two firms in Sheffield city centre has been carried out under a contract with LTR2 Division of the Department of Transport, dated 28th March 1980. The Department of Transport has been interested for some time in various aspects of car-sharing, and the impact on car sharing of different work hour arrangements, and had previously carried out surveys of car-sharers in Government offices at Longbenton, Newcastle upon Tyne (TAU 1977) and Llanishen, Cardiff (TAU 1979) where flexible working hours were in operation. This study was designed as a continuation of those studies, in a city centre area where car parking was severely restricted. The prime objective was to measure levels of car sharing in locations with higher levels of public transport provision but more restricted parking, for later comparison with the results from Longbeutzen and Llanishen. The need for the study was occasioned by the desire to know more about the factors which influence people to share cars, and the characteristics of existing spontaneously formed car-sharing arrangements and participants. To obtain this information, details of the travel and work habits of the workforce concerned had to be collected and analysed. It was considered useful to try to establish any characteristics common to ad-hoc car-sharing participants as a basis for suggesting possible causal factors. The form of the study, in terms of the type of data collected, and its subsequent tabulation, was largely shaped by the need to provide data comparable to that collected in the aforementioned studies at Longbenton and Llanishen. Other work in the Institute on the prediction of demand for car- sharing (Bonsall, 1980) and the establishment of experimental carsharing schemes (Bonsall et al, 1980) provided a useful basis for comparing the survey requirements for identifying potential car-sharers with those for identifying existing ones

Priority Management for Urban Arterials. Transferability of Techniques: Humberstone/Uppingham Road.

This paper describes the background and methodology employed in research funded by EPSRC to assess the effect of individual traffic control measures, both in isolation and in combination upon urban arterials. The aim of the project was to test the transferability of the techniques developed in a DRIVE II project, PRIMAVERA, to a range of different types of urban corridor. The techniques concerned can be classed into three broad categories: Congestion Management, Public Transport Priority and Traffic Calming. The scope of these measures is wide, some operating at a junction level whilst others concentrate on the efficient use of road space. Measures from these areas are applied to a sophisticated microsimulation model of four urban arterial corridors: three in Leeds and one in Leicester. The effects of the application of individual and integrated measures are assessed in terms of their efficiency, environmental and safety impacts using a form of Multi-Criteria Analysis. Travel time and other monetary costs are also taken into consideration. This paper reports the results for the A47 Humberstone and Uppingham Roads which form the main arterial route to the east of Leicester

Accurate Travel Times Using Portable Tape Recordings.

This paper describes the development of a method for accurately recording the number plates and times of passing of a high sample of vehicles in heavy flow situations using low cost portable tape recorders. The method has been extensively tested and found to -be better than existing methods in terms of timing accuracy, the sample size obtained, and ease of transcription. A similar method has been developed for recording data from moving observer surveys, enabling the job to be carried out by only one observer with consequent savings in survey costs

Priority Management for Urban Arterials. Transferability of Techniques: York/Selby Road.

This paper describes the background and methodology employed in research funded by EPSRC to assess the effect of individual traffic control measures, both in isolation and in combination upon urban arterials. The aim of the project was to test the transferability of the techniques developed in a DRIVE II project, PRIMAVERA, to a range of different types of urban corridor. Measures can be classed into three broad categories: Congestion Management, Public Transport Priority and Traffic Calming. The scope of these measures is wide, some operating at a junction level whilst others affect the whole network. Measures from these areas are applied to a sophisticated microsimulation model of four urban arterial corridors: three in Leeds and one in Leicester. The effects of the application of individual and integrated measures are assessed in terms of their efficiency, environmental and safety impacts using a form of Multi-Criteria Analysis. Travel time and other monetary costs are also taken into consideration. This paper reports the results for the A64 York and A63 Selby Road which are the main arterial routes to the east of Leeds.