Network Effects of VMS Duration
Jinan Piao, M. McDonald · 2000
Variable Message Signs (VMS) providing traffic information to drivers are being increasingly used to increase network efficiency and reduce congestion. A major area of application is to mitigate the effects of traffic incidents through the provision of timely traffic information. However, to realise the expected benefits it is necessary to understand the effects of VMS in a range of traffic and incidents conditions. This paper describes the research results obtained from modelling the effects of a variety of incidents/VMS scenarios. The results have been derived from using the `single-day' version of the RGCONTRAM model based on the Southampton network. The results indicate that the benefits of on-line VMS messages vary significantly with VMS duration, especially in situations of varying incident severity and duration, proportions of diversion.