01124320

Component

Efficient toll operations are an important element in the overall operation of a tolled facility. Electronic toll collection (ETC) provides important benefits to both users and operators of a tolled facility. However, designing toll plazas with mixed toll collection facilities is not always an easy task. This paper examines the impact of various toll related factors to the operation of a toll plaza combining manual and ETC systems in order to identify the optimum design of the facility. The facility concerns the main toll plaza of the Thessaloniki Submerged Artery in Greece, expected to carry some 80,000 vehicles daily. The construction of the highway will start next year. Factors examined include arriving traffic flow level, distribution of vehicles according to payment method, geometry/configuration of toll approaching area, number of gates/booths per payment system and service time. The examination of the impacts of these factors was made by means of the Paramics microsimulation software. Special features of the above exercise include limited plaza space and large traffic variations within the day. The simulation results, presented in terms of average and total delay and travel time figures and queue lengths, allowed the identification of the most effective combinations of the above factors, for given total flow levels and their distribution per toll type. The use of the above microsimulation also provides information on the travel time reliability along the freeway for the different combinations examined. The whole exercise is quite useful in determining the simulation effort required to reach the sought results with a statistically acceptable confidence level.

01033979

English

12p

2006

1st International Symposium on Freeway and Tollway Operations

DVD

Figures (6) ; References (11) ; Tables (1)

Automated toll collection; Case studies; Design; Microsimulation; Planning and design; Toll collection; Toll plazas; Traffic delays; Travel time

Paramics (Computer program)

Traffic queue length

Thessaloniki (Greece)

Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; I73: Traffic Control

TRIS, TRB

Mar 19 2009 9:01AM

• Advanced Motorway Traffic Modelling, Simulation, Surveillance and Control Tools
• An Artificial Neural Network Model for Evaluating Workers' Performance at Tollbooths
• Analysis of Benefits and Costs from Ramp Metering Implementation
• Dynamic Traffic Assignment Applications for Incident Management
• Motorway Travel Time Estimation by Switching Algorithms and Its Assessment Using Toll Data
• Serbian Pay Toll System Integration in ITS
• Travel Time Information via VMS in Athens