Framework for an Advanced Traffic Management System – Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) Based Approach

Abstract

The continual growth in road traffic increases the need for solutions of monitoring and controlling traffic to improve traffic flow, increase road safety, and protect the environment. In Pakistan, increased urbanization, population growth, motorization and rapid growth of cities has caused traffic congestion, which led to an inefficient transportation system, increased travel time/ user cost, besides causing environmental degradation i.e. air and noise pollution.. In order to ensure continued or improved efficiency, effectiveness and safety, a better use/ management of the existing road infrastructure is necessary as many existing road networks in major urban cities have reached the limits of their capacity. Traffic management system comprises of Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) applications which in a broader sense monitor and affect traffic related processes on roads through optimal and demand driven traffic progression, information (e.g. route decision, travel times) either collective (dynamic traffic signs), or individual (broadcast, web, mobile, incar) as well as the support of entities responsible of traffic operations. This project developed a framework for advanced traffic management systems (ATMS) and software package, which aimed at reducing, or at least containing, traffic congestion in urban environments by improving the efficiency of utilization of existing infrastructures. The idea behind ATMS is to maximize road network potential to create a more robust and intelligent system that can be used to meet current and future management requirements. The developed management system seeks solutions to congestion problems occurring on urban arterials and surface streets through the deployment of stateoftheart sensing (inductive loop detectors, magnetometer), communications, and dataprocessing technologies. These systems also frequently rely on variable message signs or other information dissemination technologies to provide relevant traffic information and travel recommendations to travelers. The developed traffic management systems attempts to take advantage of information provided by roadside traffic sensors to produce optimal traffic control strategies addressing traffic needs at a single intersection, along an arterial or freeway, along a given corridor, or throughout a given area. To verify the developed ATMS framework, one of its components of traffic signal actuation was evaluated using real time data at Islamabad Expressway Garden Avenue intersection as a case study. The traffic data was recorded by Jamar counter/ manually and analyzed using Synchro software both for off peak and peak conditions. Then results are presented for pretimed (existing) the actuated controllers (proposed in this project) scenarios in which latter showed a significant improvement in traffic flow conditions and level of service during off peak conditions by skipping the phase in which there is no demand resulting in lesser delays and queue formation. It is envisaged that the realtime solutions capable of automatically adjusting to changes in traffic conditions including: real time density, flow, average speed and level of service, quickest route calculation, pretrip travel information, traffic control, Incident Management, Disaster Response and Management etc. would be sought.