A Freeway Dispatch Model by Considering Redeployment of Response Teams over Temporary Sites

Abstract

The delay caused by freeway congestion is one of the main reasons affecting the service level of the freeway, especially non-recurring congestion because of freeway incidents. Hence, when incidents occur, how to dispatch response teams to arrive at the scenes of the incidents in the quickest manner is crucial. The number of available response teams may vary spatiotemporally across the freeway system, leading to imbalance of response capacity, especially when multiple incidents occur. Thereby, this study proposes a dynamic dispatch model considering the redeployment of freeway incident response teams over certain pre-identified temporary sites in the network, with the objective to minimize overall response time for incidents occurring in the studied period. A case study is made based on the roadway network of the Northern District of Taiwan Area Freeway. The result of redeployment enables more flexible dispatch and robust decisions that enhance response efficiency.