SIMULATION TESTING OF ADAPTIVE CONTROL, BUS PRIORITY AND EMERGENCY VEHICLE PREEMPTION IN NEW YORK CITY

Adaptive traffic signal control, bus priority and emergency vehicle preemption (EVP) is drawing the attention of the traffic engineering staff in New York City to solve the problems of utilizing roadway capacity and speeding the movements of bus and emergency vehicles. In this study, a microscopic traffic simulation model was used to evaluate the effectiveness of these three control methods in the environment of NYC. Six locations were evaluated for different time periods. It was concluded that the effectiveness of adaptive traffic control depends on location and time period. Bus priority reduces bus delay at all locations and for most time periods. It reduced general traffic delay at two locations for most time periods, and increased general traffic delay at three locations for some time periods. In general, EVP can improve emergency vehicle operations at all locations for all time periods. Emergency vehicle preemption disrupts the coordination of signal system. In most cases, however, the recovery time of the signal system is less than 4 cycles. During this period traffic delay increases by 4% to 58%.