Project: Warrants for automation of toll plazas under mixed traffic conditions
Warrants for automation of toll plazas under mixed traffic conditions
Duration: 2021-2022
PPP Programme for Project-Related Personal Exchange (starting in 2020) with India funded by DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, German Academic Exchange Service). TUM cooperation partner for this project is Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology, Surat, India (SVNIT).
Background
The project aims at the enhancement of throughput and depreciation of congestion and delay at the toll plazas. The data will be collected from different parts of India including different geometric and topographical characteristics. This will help in capturing widespread diversity of tollbooth operators’ and road users’ (drivers) behavior. Data collection will be carried out using Video graphic data and GPS enabled Probe Vehicles.
Trajectory-based data comprehends the traversing of all vehicles belonging to different vehicle classes and not just busses or taxis from where the GPS data is mostly obtained. Hence, it can provide accurate traffic statistics. Data will be collected through a video camera at each section on a typical weekday and weekend day under normal weather conditions. The video camera will be placed at a vantage point so as to trap the entire movements of driver and tollbooth operator while transaction with cash and receipt. The drone cameras will be used so as to capture all the movement of the vehicle from entering the diverging area until it re-joins the traffic flow after the merging section. Trajectory data will be extracted for each approaching vehicle according to the determined vehicle categories.
The influence zone thus will be found out with the speed-distance scatterplot generated from the trajectory data. Further, the predetermined response survey will be collected from the driver, tollbooth operator and management to model the users perceived level of service (LOS) at toll plaza under mixed traffic conditions.
The traffic on Indian roads is heterogeneous in nature with wide variation in the static and dynamic characteristics of different type of vehicles plying on the road. One class of vehicles cannot be considered equal to any other vehicle class as there is a considerable difference in both physical as well as flow characteristics. One way of dealing with this non-uniformity in the static and dynamic characteristics of vehicles is, to convert all vehicles into a common equivalent unit using the concept of Tollbooth Equivalency factor (TEF) at toll plaza. All categories of vehicles found in Indian heterogeneous conditions are categorized into seven different classes of vehicles, for ease in the extraction and analysis of data.
Mission and Objectives
- Strengthening of academic relations between Germany and the partner country abroad
- Complementary cooperative research work at a high academic level
- Qualification of young academics in an international environment
Research topics
- Delay modelling using the trajectory data and the field observed delay.
- Data-driven techniques, such as clustering, use for declaration of thresholds and for defining the LOS criteria on the basis of delay (both field and users’ perceived).
- Road users’ delays perception to improve infrastructural characteristics at the toll plaza.
- Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) technique use for the modelling of drivers’ behavior.
- Comparison between the drivers’ behavior in India with drivers’ behavior in developed countries like Germany.
- Formulate policy to improve existing facilities.