Simple Methodology for Evaluating Toll Plaza Operations

Abstract

Currently, the Highway Capacity Manual does not provide any tools for the analysis of toll plazas, specifically for the calculation of queue delay. Calculating delay experienced by vehicles in the plaza is a difficult task because of large variations in plaza design and operations; therefore, various simulation models such as TPSIM, WATSim, AIMSUN, and VISSIM are used extensively for toll plaza modeling. However, the performance of these models depends on their calibration and assumptions. As a result, the model results could differ greatly from reality, and the user would not have a means to evaluate their accuracy in the absence of field data. To solve this problem, a methodology has been developed to determine capacity, queuing patterns, and delays of toll plazas by considering the approach roadway conditions and traffic demand characteristics. This methodology, which is suitable for manual calculation, is suggested to improve users’ understanding of toll plaza operations and to provide a means of evaluating simulation results. The application of this methodology to the Throgs Neck Bridge toll plaza in New York City shows that the queuing pattern and delays can be estimated accurately for the a.m. peak period.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Toll Facilities in the United States. Publication FHWA-PL-03-017. FHWA, U.S. Department of Transportation. www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/tollpage.htm. Accessed Nov. 15, 2005.

Highway Capacity Manual. TRB, National Research Council, Washington, D.C., 2000.

Klodzinski

and Al-Deek

H. M.

. New Methodology for Evaluating a Toll Plaza's Level of Service. ITE Journal, March 2002, pp. 34–43.

Zarrillo

M. L.

Capacity Calculations for Two Toll Facilities: Two Experiences in ETC Implementation. Presented at 79th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C., 2000.

Lin

F. B.

and Su

C. W.

. Level of Service Analysis of Toll Plazas on Freeway Main Lines. Journal of Transportation Engineering, Vol. 120, No. 2, March–April 1994, pp. 246–263.

Lin

F.-B.

Delay Model for Planning Analysis of Main-Line Toll Plazas. In Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 1776, TRB, National Research Council, Washington, D.C., 2001, pp. 69–74.

Klodzinski

and Al-Deek

H. M.

. Evaluation of Toll Plaza Performance After Addition of Express Toll Lanes at Mainline Toll Plaza. In Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 1867, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C., 2004, pp. 107–115.

Zarrillo

M. L.

Schmitt

and Radwan

A. E.

. Modeling Traffic at Toll Collection Facilities Applying Vehicle Properties, Driver Perception–Reaction Time, and Stop Time to Basic Equations of Motion from Car-Following Theory. Presented at 83rd Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C., 2004.

Zarrillo

M. L.

Radwan

A. E.

and Dowd

J. H.

. Toll Network Capacity Calculator: Operations Management and Assessment Tool for Toll Network Operators. In Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 1781, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C., 2002, pp. 49–55.

10.

Klodzinski

and Al-Deek

H. M.

. Proposed Level-of-Service Methodology for Toll Plazas. In Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 1802, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C., 2002, pp. 86–96.

11.

Al-Deek

H. M.

Mohamed

A. A.

and Radwan

E. A.

. New Model for Evaluation of Traffic Operations at Electronic Toll Collection Plazas. In Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 1710, TRB, National Research Council, Washington, D.C., 2000, pp. 1–10.

12.

Lieberman

Applying Microsimulation to Evaluate, Plan, Design, and Manage Toll Plazas. Presented at 83rd Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C., 2004.

13.

Gustavo

and Curtis

. Queue Analysis at Toll and Parking Exit Plazas: A Comparison Between Multi-Server Queuing Models and Traffic Simulation. www.address-check.com/download/traffic/library/VISSIMQueueAnalysis.pdf.

14.

Chien

I.-J.

Spasovic

Opie

Korikanthimath

and Besenski

. Simulation-Based Analysis for Toll Plazas with Multiple Toll Collection Methods. Presented at 84th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C., 2005.

15.

Pesquera

C. I.

Gonzalez

S. L.

Colucci

and Contreras

C. M.

. Short-Term Improvements to Increase Capacity of Highly Congested Mainline Toll Plazas in Puerto Rico. In Transportation Research Record 1603, TRB, National Research Council, Washington, D.C., 1997, pp. 41–48.

16.

Long

Intervehicle Spacings and Queue Characteristics. In Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 1796, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C., 2002, pp. 86–96.