ORCID Identifier(s)

0000-0002-7497-1059

Graduation Semester and Year

2016

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Civil Engineering

Department

Civil Engineering

First Advisor

James C Williams

Second Advisor

Siamak A Ardekani

Abstract

As highway infrastructure ages and road congestion increases, roads need to be expanded and reconstructed. It results in creating many construction sites and work zones on highways, which leads to an unavoidable interruption in normal traffic flows and have resulted in traffic congestion, more vehicle emissions, and traffic safety problems. During roadway construction, when lanes or entire highway sections must be temporarily closed, traffic managers would like to inform motorists of alternative routes around the construction site well in advance of the project location. This would help reduce traffic demand through the construction site, enhance the safety of the workers and motorists, reduce traffic delays, and minimize fuel wastage and emissions. The objective of this study is to develop a decision support system to identify the optimum alternate routes around highway construction sites. The developed system, which is named TDS (Traffic Diversion System), helps traffic network managers divert traffic from the disrupted area and reduce the traffic demand through the congested region. TDS’s modules, models, and algorithms allow assessment of alternate routes that optimize network performance. An optimization model (a traffic diversion model) is developed and implemented in TDS to determine the optimum alternate routes around construction activities. To simplify computations, a subnetwork is extracted from the complete network to use in the diversion model instead of the entire network. The size of the subnetwork is estimated based on the modeling framework proposed in this research. Linear regression models, which are functions of the closed link demand and network topology, are developed to estimate the size of the subnetwork around the disruption. The closed link’s area type, traffic volume on the closed link, and travel time on the first and second alternative paths with lowest travel times are significant variables that influence the size of the subnetwork. The proposed traffic diversion model is developed to find the optimum alternate routes around the construction activities, while minimizing the total travel time of the system. Travelers are assumed to follow their historical user equilibrium routes before and after the closure while a certain percentage of them is assumed to divert to the proposed alternate routes. The developed system has an easy to use graphical user interface that allows users to work easily with the system. This system is of interest to construction agencies and traffic network managers to help them divert traffic from the congested area and reduce traffic demand through the construction sites.

Keywords

Decision support system, Traffic diversion

Disciplines

Civil and Environmental Engineering | Civil Engineering | Engineering

Comments

Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington

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