Evaluation of Optimal Traffic Monitoring Station Spacing on Freeways

摘要

Traffic Monitoring Stations on Interstate 15 in Utah's Salt Lake City metropolitan region are placed at approximately 0.5 miles spacing. It is time to replace and upgrade the detectors that constitute these Traffic Monitoring Stations. The 0.5 mile spacing owes little to logical design. Where the new detectors should be deployed and how many of them are required is the focus of this project. This research has two parts: The first part evaluated the effectiveness and reliablity of the detectors in traffic monitoring stations deployed by the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) on Interstate 15 (I15). The second part of the project was to develop analytical methodology to calculate travel time measures considering the trade-off between spacing and accuracy of the estimates.