Analyzing Effects of Driver Behavior within an Adaptive Ramp Control Scheme: A Case-Study with ALINEA

Abstract

Freeway traffic control strategies such as ramp metering and variable speed limits are gaining importance in relieving freeways congestion. Along with reducing the travel time, freeway traffic control strategies are also considered as key players in improving the traffic safety and decreasing the vehicle emissions. Traffic simulation tools overtook the real-world implementations, for testing traffic control strategies, with less time consumption, and economical and more flexible traffic analysis environment. This paper presents a micro-simulation based case-study on Istanbul freeways, where it discusses: the microscopic model calibration, the impact of ramp metering strategy Asservissement Lineaire d`Entrée Autoroutiere (ALINEA) on the traffic characteristics and traffic oscillations, and the impact of driver’s behavior at merges on ALINEA’s performance. The control algorithm is utilized online by integrating VISSIM with MATLAB via COM.