The effectiveness of incident management on network reliability

Abstract

This report summarises preliminary research undertaken in New Zealand during 2006–07 to investigate the ability of intelligent transport system (ITS) treatments, such as adaptive signal control (eg, SCATS) and variable message signs (VMS), to detect and respond to serious traffic incidents, and to determine the most appropriate traffic management strategies (in terms of overall network reliability) to apply when such incidents are detected. The study involved a literature review of techniques and software/systems currently used to manage traffic congestion and respond to incidents, and an exploratory microsimulation study modelling incident detection and response in an urban network. The research found few attempts to bring together research in the three areas of incident detection/management, ITS methods such as adaptive signal control, and network reliability measures. There is also a lack of robust incident detection available at present in New Zealand. Preliminary modelling found that SCATS can be modified to better meet additional demand due to diversions after an incident, and modelling can help to identify which particular journey paths benefit most from such incident management interventions. The findings highlighted the need for more work to be undertaken in this area in New Zealand.