抄録
Ramp metering (RM) and variable speed limits (VSL) are two important Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) tools aimed at improving the performance of motorway systems. The former is widely used all around the world to regulate on-ramp traffic while the latter is still an emerging technology that can be deployed in the mainline immediately upstream side of on-ramps to create some merging space for entering traffic. This paper assesses the performances of two ramp metering algorithms namely ALINEA and HERO individually and in combination with VSL strategies for a critical bottleneck section of Auckland Motorway using AIMSUN micro-simulation. ALINEA is the most prominent local RM algorithm while HERO is a rule-based coordinated RM algorithm. Total travel time and Gini coefficient were the two important performance indicators used to measure the efficiency and equity of the motorway system respectively. Results showed strengths and weaknesses of these tools for the motorway system.
