The estimation of reserve capacity in traffic control

Abstract

The concept of reserve capacity has long been used as a useful measure of the operational performance of individual signal-controlled junction. For Hong Kong applications, this measure has also been incorporated in the Transport Planning and Design Manual for traffic engineers to deign a signal-controlled junction. Over the years, this concept has been widely extended in the area of traffic control, ranging from individual junction design to network analysis. This paper summarises the state-of-the- art development of the concept of reserve capacity in application to traffic control, namely, the stage-based signal-controlled junction, phase-based signal-controlled junction, priority junction, roundabout and signal-controlled network. Numerical examples are given for each of these cases to demonstrate the practical applications of these research works.