These researchers previously developed a distributed framework designed for network-wide traffic monitoring and platoon information aggregation using V2V communications sent via DSRC. In this distributed system, each DSRC-equipped vehicle keeps track of the average traffic density and speed within a certain range, flags itself under a particular traffic group when appropriate, and cross-checks its flag status with its immediate up- and down-stream vehicles. Building on that previous work, this study uses simulation to assess the system’s performance under different traffic signal timing plans.

METHODOLOGY

The researchers assess the performance of the distributed monitoring system with respect to different traffic signal timing plans while fixing the traffic scenario and market penetration rate (MPR). Specifically, this study focuses on the impacts of different phase times for a pre-timed signal timing plan with fixed cycle length on the performance of the V2V monitoring system. Different phase times are captured by varying the amount of green time per cycle length (i.e., g/C ratio), keeping cycle length (C) constant. The monitoring system’s performance is assessed under combinations of five different market penetration rates (MPRs) and four different traffic scenarios. These combinations and g/C ratios are simulated in VISSIM, which is a microscopic multi-model traffic flow simulation software package.