"Active traffic management (ATM) includes a suite of traffic management and control strategies that improve operational efficiency. These strategies are used to manage traffic flow to enhance capacity and safety. This synthesis documents the state of the practice associated with designing, implementing, and operating ATM on arterial roadways."--Preface.
University of Central Florida researchers developed a decision support system (DSS) to help traffic managers apply integrated active traffic management (IATM) to improve traffic conditions on both highways and associated arterials.
This study focuses on traffic congestion, primarily that occurring on freeway corridors in metropolitan areas. Lack of coordination in the operation of various components of the system is often a major source of inefficiency, resulting in greater delays to motorists than what might be achievable with the existing physical infrastructure. The main objective of the study is to improve corridor network management by coordinating the various control elements in a freeway corridor, for both recurrent and nonrecurrent congestion situations.
Active Traffic Management (ATM) strategies have become more common in the United States as state departments of transportation grapple with increasing congestion and fewer dollars available to add capacity to keep pace. The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's NCHRP Web-Only Document 286: Principles and Guidance for Presenting Active Traffic Management Information to Drivers develops and details principles and guidance for presenting drivers with dynamic information that can be frequently updated based on real-time conditions. These principles and guidance should improve the effectiveness of ATM strategies, which include systems to manage congestion, incidents, weather, special events, and work zones.
This report serves as a comprehensive guide to traffic signal timing and documents the tasks completed in association with its development. The focus of this document is on traffic signal control principles, practices, and procedures. It describes the relationship between traffic signal timing and transportation policy and addresses maintenance and operations of traffic signals. It represents a synthesis of traffic signal timing concepts and their application and focuses on the use of detection, related timing parameters, and resulting effects to users at the intersection. It discusses advanced topics briefly to raise awareness related to their use and application. The purpose of the Signal Timing Manual is to provide direction and guidance to managers, supervisors, and practitioners based on sound practice to proactively and comprehensively improve signal timing. The outcome of properly training staff and proactively operating and maintaining traffic signals is signal timing that reduces congestion and fuel consumption ultimately improving our quality of life and the air we breathe. This manual provides an easy-to-use concise, practical and modular guide on signal timing. The elements of signal timing from policy and funding considerations to timing plan development, assessment, and maintenance are covered in the manual. The manual is the culmination of research into practices across North America and serves as a reference for a range of practitioners, from those involved in the day to day management, operation and maintenance of traffic signals to those that plan, design, operate and maintain these systems.
Above all, comprehensive real-time safety evaluation algorithms were developed for arterials, which would be key components for future real-time safety applications (e.g., real-time crash risk prediction and visualization system) in the context of pro-active traffic management.
