Coordinated pre-preemption of traffic signals to enhance railroad grade crossing safety in urban areas and estimation of train impacts to arterial travel time delay.

Details

• Creators:
  Lin, Pei-Sung ; Wang, Zhenyu ; Wang, Qing ; Guo, Rui ; Sunkari, Srinivasa ; Songchitruksa, Praprut ; Chen, Xunawu ; Xiao, Yan ; Hadi, Mohammed
• Corporate Creators:
  University of South Florida. Center for Urban Transportation Research ; Texas A&M Transportation Institute ; Lehman Center for Transportation Research
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  Algorithms Arterial Highways At Grade Intersections Before And After Studies Highway Safety Railroad Grade Crossings Simulation Traffic Signal Control Systems Traffic Signal Preemption Travel Time Urban Areas

  More +
• Publication/ Report Number:
  BDK85 977-44
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  Florida
• Corporate Publisher:
  Florida Department of Transportation
• Abstract:
  This research project investigated the potential for using advanced features of traffic signal system software platforms
  
  (ATMS.now), prevalent in Florida, to alleviate safety and mobility problems at highway-railroad at-grade crossings and
  
  adjacent arterials. Pre-preemption phasing was developed in this study to provide “extra” green time to the movements
  
  blocked by a train before the train’s arrival at the crossing in order to (1) mitigate congestion on the arterials near
  
  railways and (2) reduce the conflicts of train-vehicle and/or vehicle-vehicle adjacent to at-grade crossings. This study
  
  explored the technologies for implementing key functions of a pre-preemption system, including train detection, train
  
  arrival prediction, and pre-preemption control algorithms, and the capabilities of ATMS.now system. VISSIM-based
  
  simulation models were developed in this study based on three control sections along two railway corridors (FEC and
  
  CSX) in Broward County, Florida, to test the proposed pre-preemption strategies. A series of comparisons before-after
  
  implementing pre-preemption strategies was conducted to validate the effectiveness of pre-preemption strategies. The
  
  major findings and recommendations for implementation from this study are provided below.
  
   Upstream preemption signals (activation or release) are suggested for triggering pre-preemptions at downstream
  
  intersections along the railroad corridor. The Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) is predicted based on the logs of two
  
  or more preemptions at upstream crossings with ideal space less than 0.5 miles.
  
   The coordinated pre-preemption strategy developed in this study aims to clear the through traffic at several
  
  intersections along an arterial as much as possible before train’s arrival. All pre-preemption phases are pre-timed;
  
  coordinated pre-preemption is easy to be implemented on existing traffic controllers.
  
   Based on the simulation results, the coordinated pre-preemption strategy can effectively reduce average delay,
  
  average stops, and average queue length of the arterials near a railroad crossing. The performance pattern is
  
  sensitive to site features and strategy configurations. Considering its applicability and corridor-level effectiveness,
  
  coordinated pre-preemption is suggested when through traffic volume is higher than 500 vehicles per hour per lane
  
  (vphpl) and train block duration is longer than 100 seconds.
  
   A generic pre-preemption plan was developed in this study to provide guidance on implementation of the prepreemption strategy using the ATMS.now system in Florida.
  
  
• Format:
  PDF
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:3c87e2de0a22b65f382ded96152521c1ba85065aabf60f2a97d48ef06cb69e311c713cce1a6f629d3f222343366bb7b14f598c771be7d7c5df62ad9414582aa6
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/26860/dot_26860_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 4.99 MB ]