InSync, an ATCS developed and supported by Rhythm Engineering, is one of the youngestATCSs on the market. Yet, dozens of InSync systems were recently deployed around thecountry. InSync has been evaluated in microsimulation before. However, previous attemptslacked: a rigor of scientific approach, effort to carefully build a field-like microsimulation model,and analysis that investigates a comprehensive set of performance measures includingenvironmental and safety metrics. This study addresses these issues by evaluating performanceof InSync on a segment of SR 421 - a 12-intersection corridor in Volusia County, FL. InSyncadaptive traffic control logic has been compared to three conventional Time-Of-Day signaltiming plans in a virtual reality of a microsimulation model. The VISSIM model of SR 421 wascarefully calibrated and validated to resemble field conditions as much as possible. Each of thescenarios was simulated multiple times and results were tested for statistical significance. Ourfindings show that InSync outperformed TOD signal timings in this network in terms of trafficefficiency. Savings vary between 2-20% depending on a particular performance measure andtime of the day. An exception is side-street delay where InSync did not always outperform theTOD signal timings. In terms of environmental factors and surrogate safety measures, InSyncalso outperforms TOD signal timings but sometimes it pays the price of enabling more efficienttraffic operations than the TOD plans. Further research is necessary to investigate InSyncbenefits in the environment of volatile changes in traffic flows.
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