Simulation of rerouting incentives for improved travel corridor performance

Abstract: Congestion on the road is identified as a severe threat to nations’ economy. To address this problem, in the past the capacity of existing infrastructure is increased by building new roads. But as history has shown, it is not only an expensive and unsustainable, but also not an efficient way of dealing with this problem. Alternatively, by identifying underutilized links, for example, in the form of parallel routes, the already existing infrastructure can often be used more efficient. This thesis focuses on the development of a framework to simulate re-routing incentives to enable an improved travel corridor performance. Thus, the effects of providing traveler information and tendering mometary incentives on a concidor’s traffic flow are investigated. The aim is to show that by changing the route choice behavior of a certain percentage of the fleet, the overall performance of the existing corridor can be increased. By using the microscopic traffic simulation tool VISSIM in combination with dynamic traffic modeling, numerous scenarios are simulated. By gradually increasing the amount of users who get access to the incentive scheme, the impacts of the penetration get analyzed as well. Based on a network stretch located in California, United States, the simulation model is developed. Using this model, three different scenarios are investigated in detail: a No Incident scenario, a Construction Work scenario and an Accident scenario. Finally, a comprehensive analysis of the simulation results takes place. It mainly focuses on the indicator travel time to discuss the impacts on the corridor performance. Interpreting the achieved simulation results, it can be stated that already small penetration rates have the potential for a significant increase of the corridor performance. To be able to optimize the corridor’s performance, free capacity on detours – especially  at bottlenecks like ramps – has to be available. Nevertheless, in case of high penetration rates, straightforward broadcasting of incentives is not an option.