Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Variable Speed Limit Strategies To Reduce The Impacts Of Traffic Flow Breakdown At Recurrent Freeway Bottlenecks, Ali Darroudi

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Variable Speed Limit (VSL) strategies identify and disseminate dynamic speed limits that are determined to be appropriate based on prevailing traffic conditions, road surface conditions, and weather conditions. This dissertation develops and evaluates a shockwave-based VSL system that uses a heuristic switching logic-based controller with specified thresholds of prevailing traffic flow conditions. The system aims to improve operations and mobility at critical bottlenecks. Before traffic breakdown occurrence, the proposed VSL’s goal is to prevent or postpone breakdown by decreasing the inflow and achieving uniform distribution in speed and flow. After breakdown occurrence, the VSL system aims to dampen traffic congestion …