STRIDE Project A4

Identification of unpredictable sources of non-recurring congestion and mitigating strategies

Research Team

Mr. Thomas Chase, Research Scholar, NCSU
Angshuman Guin, Ph.D., Georgia Tech
Andrew Sullivan, Ph.D., University of Alabama at Birmingham
Rod Turochy, Ph.D., Auburn University
Christopher Cunningham, Ph.D., North Carolina State University
Virginia Sisiopiku, Ph.D., University of Alabama at Birmingham

UTC Project Info (posted soon)

The Issue at Large: Transportation Systems Management and Operations (TSMO) strategies implemented by local and state transportation agencies aim at improving mobility and safety through monitoring, providing traveler information and direct intervention. Congestion management has historically focused on mobility improvements that focus on capacity and quality of service for a typical travel day. TSMO strategies often target reliability of travel and non-recurring congestion, with sources including 1) Incidents, 2) Weather, 3) Work Zones, and 4) Special Events. Many of the sources of congestion are inherently unpredictable events and strategies targeting these causes must be adaptive and timely. These strategies are also often difficult to fully capture the effectiveness as data needs may be very high and analysis methods for the operational strategies differ significantly from traditional transportation projects. This project will focus on the identification of strategies available to address unpredictable congestion as well as guidance on implementation and estimating benefits.

What will this research produce? The results of this project will provide agencies with a playbook of strategies available to address unreliable travel due to a wide variety of sources of congestion. Agencies can utilize the developed case studies in order to consider pilot testing or wide-scale adoption of successful strategies.The project will develop a set of case studies based on feedback from Southeast DOT stakeholders of strategies which have been at least pilot tested within their agencies. Data will be collected on the goals of the strategy, staffing or contracting needed to implement as well as any estimated benefits the agencies have collected. This will be summarized in a white paper as well as a webinar developed for practitioners within agencies.