Design and Simulation of a Variable Speed Limit System for Freeway Bottleneck Areas

Jun Niu, Shan Lin (), Erlong Lou, Zongdian Li, Kaiqun Chen and Haijian Li
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Jun Niu: School of Electronics and Control Engineering, Chang’an University, Xi’an 710054, China
Shan Lin: School of Electronics and Control Engineering, Chang’an University, Xi’an 710054, China
Erlong Lou: Beijing Engineering Research Center of Urban Transport Operation Guarantee, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China
Zongdian Li: Beijing Engineering Research Center of Urban Transport Operation Guarantee, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China
Kaiqun Chen: Guangxi Xinfazhan Communication Group Co., Ltd., Nanning 530022, China
Haijian Li: Beijing Engineering Research Center of Urban Transport Operation Guarantee, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-17

Abstract: Freeway bottleneck areas are prone to congestion and have high accident risk. A variable speed limit provides technical support for alleviating congestion and improving traffic safety in such areas. The existing variable speed limit rules in the related literature have a single focus, and most of them do not give specific quantitative speed limits. In this study, a variable speed limit system suitable for freeway bottleneck areas was constructed. Variable speed limit rules under different levels of traffic congestion and adverse weather conditions were designed, and the parameters for freeways were defined. Then, the VISSIM microscopic traffic simulation software was used to build two bottleneck scenarios of a tunnel area and a merging area for simulation tests. The research shows that in these two scenarios, reasonable speed limits can effectively reduce roadway delays and improve the operational efficiency of bottleneck areas in certain traffic flow ranges (e.g., a medium flow of around 900 pcu/h/lane). Unreasonable speed limits in low flow inhibit freeway efficiency more significantly. When congestion has already formed with high flow, different speed limits have a limited effect on efficiency improvement. The research results reported in this paper can provide a theoretical reference for the design and practical application of variable speed limit systems in freeway bottleneck areas. This provides a certain contribution to sustainable traffic development.

Keywords: bottleneck area; variable speed limit system; traffic congestion; efficiency improvement; simulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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