Evaluation of the integrated application of intelligent transportation system technologies using stochastic incident generation and resolution modeling

This paper presents the use of the microscopic vehicle traffic simulation software PARAMICS to evaluate different incident management implementation alternatives in South Carolina. This study customized the simulation model for random spatial and temporal traffic incident generation, and modeled different incident alternatives through an application programming interface. This incident management system integrated incident reporting hotlines, traffic cameras, traffic sensors, and freeway service patrols (FSPs), finding that this approach to incident management outperformed the application of traffic cameras or FSPs alone. The integrated application of intelligent transportation system technologies significantly reduced incident duration and total vehicle hours of travel during an incident. In addition, FSP response policy and headway affected the incident management performance.