Volume-to-Capacity Estimation of Signalized Road Networks for Metropolitan Transportation Planning

1 2 Transportation planning has been playing a critical role in shaping the economic health and 3 quality of life. It not only provides insight into the mobility of people and goods, but also 4 influences patterns of growth and economic activity. Metropolitan transportation planning is a 5 challenging transportation topic due to the lack of future traffic information, such as evaluation 6 of the capacity sufficiency on large metropolitan road networks with signalized intersections. 7 The Highway Capacity Manual provides methods for analysis of signalized intersections and 8 urban streets for planning; however, these methods need detailed traffic volume inputs and lane 9 configurations at signalized intersections, which are normally not readily available in 10 metropolitan transportation planning. The conventional four step planning process is widely used 11 to forecast directional traffic volumes on road segments, but the projected volumes are not 12 enough for analyzing capacity sufficiency of future road networks by existing methods. This 13 paper discusses the proposed method developed by integration of available transportation 14 planning data and characteristics of signalized intersections. It links traffic assignment results of 15 the conventional transportation planning procedure to capacity sufficiency estimation. By using 16 the proposed method, transportation planners can estimate capacity sufficiency of future 17 metropolitan road networks through use of readily available data in transportation planning. This 18 method will dramatically decrease the effort required for capacity evaluation of large signalized 19 metropolitan road networks. 20 21 22