IMPACTS OF SMART SIGNALS ON INTERSECTION CAPACITY AND LEVEL OF SERVICE. HIGHWAY CAPACITY AND LEVEL OF SERVICE. PROCEEDINGS OF THE INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON HIGHWAY CAPACITY, KARLSRUHE, GERMANY, 24-27 JULY 1991

The recent development of advanced ("smart") signal controllers has very significant impacts on the performance of signalized intersections. These controllers have distinct and novel operating characteristics, necessitating a new adaptation of our analysis methodologies to the developing technologies. In this paper the authors provide a preliminary analysis of the potential capacity and level-of-service implications of an OPAC-based controller. This type of controller employs advanced detection and optimization techniques and is highly adaptive. It provides a very efficient allocation of the right-of-way among the competing traffic streams at the intersection and substantially reduces operational delay.