Corridor Management Plan Demonstration is an on-going California Center for Innovative Transportation (CCIT) project. Partners involved in this project include regional, local and congestion management agencies and researchers from the University of California campuses, supported by System Metrics Group and Cambridge Systematics Inc. Simulation modeling is being used in the project for more accurate modeling of system management strategies and estimation of the benefits. There are three corridors being studied. The first one is the I-880 freeway corridor which is located east of San Francisco. It is a 37-mile long traffic route and included in the simulation is 163 actuated signals, 20 fixed-time signals, and 149 traffic responsive ramp meters. The second is the SR-41 corridor network, located in Fresno, CA. The third corridor is the 35-mile long I-5 corridor in Orange County. This simulation studies aim to reproduce real-world peak AM and PM congestion patterns in microscopic simulations, as well as evaluate short or medium term operational improvements based on the calibrated network. These studies use mainly Paramics microsimulations and will evaluate a number of scenarios. The study will result in a template for Caltrans to use in corridor planning efforts that will integrate both planning and operations. This will help to address the problem of lost system productivity during congestion, thereby improving mobility in the most cost effective manner.

Caltrans TMS Master Plan project was conducted for the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) Office of Operations in 2002. The purpose of the project was to investigate the benefits of traffic management systems (TMS) elements in California. The existing and planned TMS elements considered in this project included vehicle detection (i.e. loop detector), HOV lane, incident management, arterial management (i.e. adaptive signal control), traveler information, and ramp metering. The project established a Paramics simulation model for the I-405/I-5 corridor network in Orange County, emulated all considered TMS elements, and then performed an effectiveness and benefit/cost analysis for different combinations of TMS elements based on baseline demand and future year demand. The evaluation results show that all ITS strategies have positive effects on the network performance. Because of the network topology (one major freeway with two parallel arterial streets), real-time traveler information system has the greatest benefits among all single ITS components. The combination of several TMS elements, such as the combination scenario, can generate better benefits.

Evaluating Adaptive Ramp Metering Control was a PATH project completed in 2001. The project established a microscopic simulation based method to evaluate adaptive ramp metering algorithms. PARAMICS was adopted as the simulation platform for further evaluation of the selected metering algorithms. Several PARAMICS plugin modules, including detector data aggregation (on-line data collection), ramp metering control (mimics ramp signal operations), and ramp metering algorithms (metering logic implementations), are developed to build a simulation based ramp metering evaluation framework. The evaluated metering algorithms included ALINEA, Bottleneck, SWARM, and Zone algorithms, which were coded into this framework for a stretch of southbound Interstate 405 located in Orange County, California. Finally, the performances of these algorithms are compared under different demand patterns.

Integrated Ramp Metering Design, Evaluation, and Optimization Platform with PARAMICS Simulations is an on-going PATH project, which aims to provide a user-friendly graphical interface to the design and evaluation of a set of ramp metering algorithms/systems. All ramp metering algorithms used in California will be included in the product of the project.

Evaluation of Incorporating Hybrid Vehicle Use of HOV Lanes is an on-going PATH project, which aims to help policymakers determine the impacts of the policy to allow low emission and hybrid vehicles to use carpool lanes. The study will be based on the whole Orange County freeway system and estimated demand matrices for hybrid vehicles, HOV vehicles and other single occupancy vehicles.

Traffic Management Center (TMC) simulator for operator training was a California ATMS testbed project that aimed to establish a simulated TMC environment in which TMC operators can be trained to become familiar with traffic management and control system and to improve their skills to respond to traffic accidents, as a way to decrease the negative effects brought by incidents. The simulated TMC environment includes a simulated traffic incident logging software called CAD simulator, a simulated traffic management software called ATMS simulator, and Paramics traffic simulator to simulate one third of Orange County freeway system and needs to mimic traffic incidents based on incident information from CAD simulator, mimic desired traffic control and management based on trainee’s response to incident, and provide traffic data to ATMS simulator to display. Three training classes have been conducted using the system since its prototype was completed in November 2005. Both Caltrans and students are satisfactory with the results of the training. It will potentially save a lot of funds of Caltrans for operator training.