Ecolane Applications

Abstract

This study investigated the feasibility of ecolane applications along a section of Interstate 66 in Northern Virginia. In ecolanes, drivers are required to operate the vehicle at recommended or variable speed limits to reduce transportation energy consumption and improve vehicle mobility. The study focused its efforts on evaluation of various eco-lane algorithms and speed harmonization (SPD-HARM) applications through the use of INTEGRATION microscopic traffic simulation software. The study demonstrated that the proposed ecolanes system could significantly improve fuel efficiency and air quality while reducing average vehicle travel time and total delay. For this case study, the eco-lane system reduced delay, fuel consumption, and emissions of hydrocarbon (HC), carbon monoxide (CO), and carbon dioxide (CO₂) by 23%, 4.5%, 3.1%, 3.4%, and 4.6%, respectively, compared with those in the base case scenario. The study also examined the feasibility of a predictive ecolane system and demonstrated that such a system could improve the performance of the original ecolane system. Furthermore, this study demonstrated that optimum throttle levels and optimum eco-speed limits (speed limits that were optimized for mobility, fuel consumption, and emissions levels) could significantly improve the performance of the ecolane system. Finally, the study demonstrated that SPD-HARM across all vehicles and lanes reduced the system delay, fuel consumption, and emissions of HC, CO, oxides of nitrogen, and CO₂ by 7.6%, 6.3%, 23.9%, 26.1%, 17.2%, and 4.4%, respectively, compared with those in the base case scenario.