Guidelines for ECO-traffic Signal System Operations in Small and Medium Size City Environments PDF Download

Author: Sherief Elbassuoni
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781321738155
Category : Automobiles
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
The main goal of this dissertation is to offer guidelines for ECO-traffic signal system operations in small and medium size city environments. The first part of this dissertation synthesizes and documents different aspects of emissions inventories. This synthesis work is focused on two areas: fuel consumption and emission modeling tools and sources of emissions inventory and data used in the models. The second part of this dissertation deals with vehicle performance modeling using advanced engine modeling software (GT-Suite). The main goal of this part of the analysis is to document the fuel consumption and environmental cost of vehicle operations at signalized intersection approaches. The vehicle performance modeling was conducted on four different speed profiles: idling (queued vehicles): vehicle stops at the intersection (0 mph) when the red display is shown -- cruising (free-flow vehicles): vehicle is cruising at different speeds (25, 35, 45, and 55 mph) when the green display is shown -- accelerating from a stop position to different target speeds: vehicle is accelerating from a stopped condition to different target speeds (25 mph, 35 mph, 45 mph, and 55 mph). Three different acceleration values are used in the analysis a) mild acceleration: 40% of the maximum vehicle acceleration envelope, (4.7 ft. /s2), b) normal acceleration: 60% of the maximum vehicle acceleration envelope, (7.1 ft. /s2), and c) aggressive acceleration: 100% of the maximum vehicle acceleration envelope, (11.8 ft. /s2) -- accelerating from a non-zero speed to different target speeds (delayed vehicles): vehicle is accelerating from a non-zero speed to a target speed (25 mph, 35 mph, 45 mph, and 55 mph). Three acceleration values are also used in this part of the analysis (4.7 ft. /s2, 7.1 ft. /s2, and 11.8 ft. /s2). The third part of this dissertation deals with minimizing the environmental impact of corridor traffic operations in small and medium size city environment. While corridor traffic iv in small and medium size cities does not experience the high levels of congestion typically present in large urban areas, it still generates a considerable amount of emissions and vehicle pollutants, negatively impacting the environment. The primary objective of this part of the analysis is to investigate different corridor traffic management plans and examine their potential impact in reducing vehicle emissions and fuel consumption. Corridor optimizations and microscopic traffic simulation models were used to develop and test corridor traffic management plans and to assess their operational and environmental impact. The corridor coordination plans were developed using different objective functions. The results showed that corridor’s operating speed and the percent of the through traffic on the corridor to the total network traffic play a major role in determining the optimization objective function that produces the coordination plan with the least environmental impact. The study results showed that, when the percent of through traffic on the corridor exceeds 70% of the total network traffic, coordination plans optimized for excess fuel consumption appear to produce minimal effects on the environment. In the fourth part of this dissertation, guidelines on how to develop signal control parameter for isolated intersections to reduce stops and minimize the environmental impact of traffic operations are presented and discussed. The potential impact of advanced controller settings such as rest-on-red, rest-on-green, and delayed detection are also presented.