Employment of the Traffic Management Laboratory (TRAMLAB) for Evaluating Ramp Control Strategies in the Twin Cities

Status: Complete
Report Date: 07/01/2002

Summary:

Ramp metering is one way to address freeway traffic congestion. This study employs the Traffic Management Laboratory (TRAMLAB) to evaluate the effectiveness of Mn/DOT's control strategy in three Twin Cities freeway sections totaling approximately 65 miles. It develops a new traffic management concept for early detection of incident-prone traffic conditions and integrates it in order to smooth flow and prevent incident occurrence, thereby further reducing delays and improving safety. The project is part of a larger program which aims to develop the TRAMLAB as part of the ITS Laboratory at the University of Minnesota. Such an environment will contain state-of-the-art traffic simulation programs and allow the development of viable, intelligent, and automated traffic-flow simulation programs and simulation systems that can function as both operational and research tools.