Effectiveness of arterial traffic status monitoring using system detector data based on a V-Plus-O approach

Congestion estimation for arterial roads has become an emerging research topic in the US while freeway congestion has already been widely studied. Considering the fact that more than 40 percent of US vehicle traveled miles are on the arterial roads, how to cost-effectively monitor and estimate the arterial congestion levels using data from existing ITS facilities is highly demanded by government agencies. This paper aims at evaluating the effectiveness in traffic status estimation of an alternative approach which uses a combination of volume and occupancy data obtained from existing system detectors placed on the arterial corridor. In doing so, the concept of V-Plus-O (%V plus Occupancy) is used in the paper. This concept combines the volume data and the occupancy data collected from the system detector into a single measure of effectiveness (MOE) for arterial traffic status estimation. To evaluate the effectiveness of this alternative approach, a case study has been conducted at a major corridor in downtown Detroit, Michigan. A simulation model has been developed and calibrated as a test bed to compare the traffic status estimated using the proposed alternative approach to the traffic status computed based on speed threshold specified in the Highway Capacity Manual 2010. It has been finally concluded that the V-Plus-O approach can effectively estimate the arterial traffic status, and is promising to serve as a cost-effective alternative to expensive radar and video based methods for real-time arterial traffic status monitoring without any necessities for new equipment installation.