MODELING TRAFFIC OPERATIONS AT ELECTRONIC TOLL COLLECTION AND TRAFFICMANAGEMENT-SYSTEMS

Automatic Vehicle Identification (AVI) technology is one possible solu tion to traffic congestion at existing transportation facilities. This paper presents a mathematical model of traffic conditions for toll pl aza facilities that includes AVI toll collection services among other conventional services. Three types of services are available: manual t oll service, in which transactions are handled by a toll collector, au tomatic toll service, in which coin machines are utilized, and AVI toi l collection service. In addition, mixed lanes, which provide more tha n one of the above services, are considered by the model. For a given rush hour, queue lengths and delays can be calculated for different to ll plaza configurations. Comparison of their performance may aid opera tors in the management of the lane configurations until all users of t he facility become AVI patrons. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.